CBCSS to FYUGP: Making the Talk Walk

We are at the threshold of a major overhaul of the Higher Education scene in India as the NEP unfolds and the Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUGP) is being slowly unveiled. In Kerala, the FYUGP will be implemented from the academic year 2024-25 in all colleges and the decision making bodies are working overtime to put a system in place. There's an equal mixture of hope and anxiety in the air. Hope bred by the changes to be ushered in with the system reboot and the expectations thereof. Anxiety stemming from the manner in which the changes may be administered. No system can be overhauled overnight and huge challenges are on the cards when a National Policy shift with seismic proportions in the Higher Education scene is put into action. This post means to indicate the multiple ways in which the whole exercise can go haywire if the past instances are anything to go by. It also dwells on the precautions which can be taken while the State goes about implementing the same. 

The past attempts at introduction of new measures and strategies have worked fine at the Primary level. I mean the system was overhauled apparently while CBCSS was brought in. The semester system replaced the year based programmes. New syllabi were in place and new practices too, like internal assessments and research projects. Internal assessment platter had components like written tests, seminar presentations and assignments in it. The most visible part of the change obviously was the split of the old year into two semesters. That certainly broke the back of the hitherto practices and life has not been the same for the academics ever since. 

There are significant changes brought in with the said switch to semester-based, so called Choice Based Credit Semester System. The question most of the practitioners of the new system would ask is about the manner in which it was interpreted and delivered to the students. When CBCSS was brought in, there were complaints that the syllabus set earlier for an year was split into two and it became the semester-wise syllabus, missing the whole rationale of the major switch which was anticipated with the CBCS, reducing it to a a mere act of calendar split ( with the 2 months vacation still coming at the end of the year, not after each semester, still!). Then there is the interesting aspects of how various elements of the new system were implemented in the Higher Education institutions. Without being hand held to implement the transformation efficiently, the chaos it led to is still evident. It needs to be explored how many colleges are effectively running seminar presentations or collecting and assessing assignments earnestly. In many HEIs the seminar presentations either don't happen or have been interpreted as chats with the faculty members concerned often labelled as viva, even though in actual practice it is a curious cross between small talk and student monologue. Let us not miss yet another category of colleges where this has been turned by faculty into master opportunities to discipline and punish. Similar is the case of seminars too. Often the content of what is being presented is missing or it is never read out. Either the content part or the presentation part or both will be missing! If by strokes of luck these combine, the question at times is if this has been diligently gone through by the faculty members who grade it. Grading with a rubric will be an uncommon practice. 

Open Courses, another element of the CBCSS, have never been open enough for the students to walk into any course they are interested in from a different stream. I recall a Food Technology faculty member passionately discouraging students of Commerce stream from doing Food Tech Open Course as they will not have the desired fundas with them! So even if the doors are open enough for the Commerce undergrads to make it to a Food Tech Open Course list, there are hurdles put in place by those who run the course because they have failed to grasp the essence of the policy switch. When it comes to Student Projects, the story has been told earlier. Many institutions' representatives have spoken in private about their unwillingness to forward projects as for Project Prize competition we run, as they are not sure about their originality (though they have authenticated the project reports' 'bonafide' status with a signature at the bottom!). 

What I am trying to communicate is the capacity many of us, those who are at the delivering end of the new ideas and policies, have to pare down the scales to its so-considered essentials so keenly that at the end of the day, all the sweetness of the change, takeaways for the students, would have been nullified. We seem to be pretty good at doing this. In closing the Open Courses, in trivialising the projects, metamorphosing seminar presentations to a casual Q & As, making assignments resemble paper pads and so on. Equally relevant is the manner in which the content transaction is still kept at the default lecture mode, while the spirit of CBCSS clearly indicated the need to diversify. 

What are we going to do with the 4 year degree curriculum? The plan on paper is admirable and ambitious. The good old issue of hurry is once again gripping us. There's pressure from the top to comply and we are getting ready to fast track. What will we do with the study-related work component the students are to do in the new scheme of things? Will it be like the Compulsory Social Service (CSS) diary signed by the HEIs without much of Compulsory Social Service being done? Another excellent idea that was given a clean, quiet burial! The language learning ways of students will change in the new scheme of things, it says. How will that be read by the practitioners and providers of the Higher Education concerned? From a system in which spoken English is tested in the written mode, how do we mean to change? With classrooms in language sessions getting increasingly crowded, how will the faculty members be capable of genuinely addressing the objectives of enhancing the students ability to use language to communicate effectively, to write well? Factor in the reduction of time assigned for languages, ignoring the new  ability enhancement and Foundation labels, and ask what will be the outcome? Of course there are ways to make it work, if we set out with a passionate, studied intent. Yet, it remains to be seen how we will corrupt and tame the possibilities of the new curriculum and make it agree with our customised (in)efficiencies. It is admitted that certain components put into the new scheme of things may be quite ambitious ones, considering the learner levels and faculty capabilities. But once the system is adopted, the burden shifts to those who are responsible to deliver. 

When the CBCSS was rolled out in 2009, there were hopes of a shift in content and attitudes. Though the system and the philosophy changed, the scales and structure were altered, behaviourally not much changed on the part of those who delivered and assessed. The chaos which ensued still linger and are part of the said lethargy as the system failed to reboot. Unlike the machines, the humans are hard to reboot as the defaults are often found to be reboot-proof! When the whole of Higher Education is facing challenges as it has has never before, with the struggle to retain enrollment being a key concern, we can't afford to bring in stillborn practices under the NEP/FYUGP label.

The Universities have the serious task of meticulously following up on the plans which are ceremoniously announced. Rather than leaving it fully to the HEIs, it is required to act as a genuine mentor. What is called for is a vigilant mentor who will not only efficiently scaffold but also sympathetically police the system! This is no easy job because it is taken for granted that HEIs are academically responsible and autonomously able to operate with quality and integrity. Though many may be, the pressure of the principle of the majority soon catches up. Academic practices which are introduced in right earnest by the affiliating University or under the direction of new policy at the higher level are taken up enthusiastically to start off. As days roll by and semesters pass, when the difficulty levels are evident, those who are unprofessionally inclined cut corners and introduce novel short cuts and procedures which are in sync with their level of incompetence. The result could be Internships on paper or a blended course with a ghost component. These FYUGP-equivalents of the CBCSS cut and paste research projects will gradually take root. This will catch on and spread to other colleges and faculty members. 

Soon the question will be why should we do it the hard way, the right way, when the other colleges are doing it the easy way, the wrong way? In the long run the system will be effectively tamed to mean what the so called busy ones, uncaring ones, have chosen it to mean. The much hyped changes will be, as one senior faculty member told me, taken 'care of to fit in'. He meant to fit the novel schemes into what's already there today, rather allow the new wine to break the old bottle. If these label-management experts are allowed to work their magic, it will be hard to distinguish between absence from the class and internship! The former will be allowed to masquerade as the latter. Let us not allow to. Rather than focus only on the count of credits and arch eyebrows counting the widening choice of majors, the HEIs need to focus on the challenges which come with the thrust on learner autonomy, OBE, course design, increasing career - orientation, innovation in the area of assessments and diversifying content delivery modes. In a sense that's where the extra emphasis has to fall. Or the HEIs will miss the bus again. 

Babu. P. K., Ph D