With no syllabi reduce, Karnataka universities adopt ‘self-study’ approach

While the syllabi for the 2020-21 educational yr has been reduce for colleges and pre-university faculties, universities and faculties have determined towards trimming or tweaking their syllabi for the present educational yr.

Instead, they’re altering their instructing strategies and asking college students to adopt the “self-study” approach for a lot of chapters. Managements of universities and faculties say they’ve been compelled to do that as there’s no readability on when courses will likely be allowed to renew. Lecturers say that not solely are they unable to finish parts whereas instructing on-line, however there was a shift within the method and magnificence of instructing, one which each academics and college students are adapting to. Self-study is one such approach of studying that’s being adopted.

Students, too, say that lecturers are giving them extra work to do on their very own. A postgraduate scholar from Christ (Deemed-to-be University) mentioned they’ve two hours of on-line courses adopted by two hours of self-reading or assignments. “The teachers upload the assignment and give us a deadline. If we submit it in time, we get attendance,” she mentioned.

T.D. Kemparaju, Vice-Chancellor, Bengaluru North University, mentioned universities can not reduce their syllabus arbitrarily and wish to take action on a scientific foundation after a whole lot of deliberation. Any change in syllabus will want approval from the University Grants Commission (UGC). “The portion of one semester is related to that in the next, so we cannot just cut it. Instead, we want to encourage students to study some parts of the portion on their own. We want to provide study material that will help them,” he mentioned.

Colleges and universities within the State have been initially slated to open on October 1. However, with the rise within the variety of COVID-19 circumstances, the federal government determined to delay the resumption of courses. This is in line with the UGC, which had mentioned that first-semester courses could start from November 1. S. Japhet, Vice-Chancellor, Bengaluru Central University, mentioned many lecturers are additionally asking college students to make displays in order that the courses usually are not restricted to the lecturers delivering monologues.

Many college students, nevertheless, usually are not pleased with the web courses and say that lecturers are adopting these strategies as they’re neither comfy with taking on-line courses nor skilled within the medium. “We tell our lecturers that they can use certain visual tools to make the classes more lively. However, they are not tech-savvy. To avoid taking classes, they tell us to complete assignments and ask us to study on our own,” mentioned a second-year scholar of a city-based faculty affiliated to Bangalore University.