UGC announces decision to allow students to simultaneously persue two academic programmes

The University Grants Commission (UGC) announced on April 12 that students will now be able to pursue two full-time academic degrees in physical mode. The commission has put together a set of guidelines regarding the same, which are now available on UGC’s official website. The previous regulations did not allow students to pursue two full-time programmes as they could only pursue one full-time degree along with online/short-term/diploma courses.

It is reported that these guidelines will apply to all the programmes available across the country. Students can either choose a combination of a diploma programme and an undergraduate (UG) degree, two master’s degree programmes, or two bachelor’s programmes. If a student is eligible to pursue a postgraduate (UG) degree and also wants to enrol in a bachelor’s degree in a different domain, he/she will be able to pursue a UG and PG degree simultaneously, and the class timing for both the programmes must not clash.
The guidelines will apply to all the programmes available across the country. Students can either choose a combination of a diploma programme and an undergraduate (UG) degree, two master’s programmes, or two bachelor’s programmes. The students can choose through a wide domain of disciplines, such as a Science UG can take on a Social Sciences degree, and likewise choose from a wide range of disciplines.

“In the last commission meeting held on March 31, it was decided to issue guidelines which will enable students to pursue two academic programmes simultaneously because the NEP 2020 emphasises the need to facilitate multiple pathways to learning involving both formal and non-formal education forms, in the sense that a combination of the physical model, as well as the online form, should be used to provide more freedom to the students to acquire multiple skills,” UGC chairman, Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar said in a press interview.