University Grants Commission (UGC) chairman M. Jagadesh Kumar on Tuesday announced that students will now be able to pursue two degrees simultaneously in physical mode starting from the academic session 2022-2023. Among the two degrees taken up by students, one should be in regular mode and the other one can be pursued in an open/distant mode of education. The plan for this policy has been in the works since 2020 but now on Tuesday, it has been made final and official.
“As announced in the NEP 2020 and in order to allow students to acquire multiple skills, UGC is coming up with new guidelines to allow a candidate to pursue two-degree programmes in physical mode simultaneously. The degrees can either be pursued from the same or different universities,” said M Jagadish Kumar, chairperson, UGC on Tuesday.
The students will have the freedom to pursue both degrees from the same college/university or different institutions. Candidates who will be pursuing this new education policy will have to make sure their classes do not overlap with one another. the students will be eligible for two degrees at the same time.
The students can go for this policy at any level of their education, be it doing two undergraduate degrees, two post-graduate degrees or even two diploma degrees. They can be taken as both in online mode, either in physical classroom mode, one online and one offline. The attendance requirement for the programmes will be decided by the respective colleges and institutions, said Kumar.
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For now, the two degrees the students can opt for must be non-technical and approved by UGC. They can be from different streams but the admission will be granted on the eligibility of the student and availability/seats for the respective programme. The combination of technical and non-technical degrees is difficult for now and henceforth UGC is refraining from it at present.
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The students will be given better opportunities by this new policy, much more flexibility to choose their career and will have additional options opened for their future.
