Mita Mukherjee
St Xavier’s University, Kolkata, a private university run by Jesuits on Wednesday finalized its decision to start the new four-year undergraduate programmes from the 2023-24 academic session, Father Felix Raj, vice-chancellor of the university said.
Preparations in all the departments in the university for switching to the new four-year curriculum from the existing three-year undergraduate courses are ready and the university is all set to officially announce its decision in this regard immediately after the announcement of the Class XII board examinations, Father Felix Raj said.
The Class XII board results are likely to be declared in May.
“ All our departments are ready with the preparations to start the new four-year undergraduate courses from the current 2023 academic session as recommended in the New Education Policy 2020. The process of framing the syllabuses for the new courses are also complete. We are hoping that we will be in a position to announce the syllabuses of at least the first two semesters when we start admitting students for the new session after the announcement of the Class XII results by different boards,” Father Felix Raj told EducationWorld.
The decision to go ahead with the new curriculum was finalized at the university’s executive council meeting held on Tuesday afternoon, the vice-chancellor said.
St Xavier’s University is the first university in the state to announce that it is ready to go ahead with launching the new four-year undergraduate programme from the current year.
The announcement is significant because, even as the University Grants Commission (UGC) has directed all institutions of higher education in the country to ensure that the new curriculum gets launched from the 2023-24 session, scheduled to start in July, the Bengal government is yet to take the decision on whether it would implement it from this year or not in all the state-aided institutions in view of the challenges faced by many of them in respect of infrastructure facilities and faculty strength.
The Bengal government has set up a six-member committee only last week which will examine the infrastructure and other facilities available in the state-aided universities and submit a report to the government this month on whether the institutions are ready to implement the new undergraduate curriculum from the 2023-24 session or not.
Some other private institutions in Bengal including Sister Nivedita University run by the Techno India group, Adamas University and St Xavier’s College (Autonomous) too have completed the preparations to start the four-year undergraduate programmes and are planning to start them from this year, sources in the institutions said.
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