University Grants Commission has come up with the Choice Based Credit System

(CBCS) programme in which the students have a choice to choose from the prescribed
courses, which are referred as core, elective or minor or soft skill courses and they can
learn at their own pace and the entire assessment is graded-based on a credit system.
The basic idea is to look into the needs of the students so as to keep up-to-date with
development of higher education in India and abroad. CBCS aims to redefine the
curriculum keeping pace with the liberalization and globalization in education. CBCS
allows students an easy mode of mobility to various educational institutions spread
across the world along with the facility of transfer of credits earned by students.

Features of CBCS:

• This is a uniform CBCS for all central and state and other recognized universities.

• There are three main courses: Core, Elective and Foundation.

Core Course: A course which should be compulsorily studied by a candidate as a core

requirement for the completion of the degree. The number of core courses for Honours
and Regular degrees are different.

Elective Course: An elective course is the one which a student has some kind of
freedom to choose from a pool of courses. Elective courses can be ‘Generic’ or ‘Discipline
Specific.’ The generic elective courses are those, which can be chosen by a student
belonging to any stream.

Discipline Specific Elective Courses(DSE) are particular to only the discipline

concerned. However, a student pursuing an Honours Degree Course can choose a
Generic Elective(GE) from any other discipline except from the honours course itself.

Ability Skill Enhancement Course

An Ability or Skill Enhancement Course is aimed at providing the student with value
based or skill based instruction. These courses have four (4) credits each in contrast to
the core or elective courses. The ability enhancement courses MUST be opted by a
student and the student can chose papers from a poor of skill enhancement courses.

Project Work/Dissertation

A student can opt(subject to conditions) a dissertation or a project work in lieu of a 6

credit discipline specific elective course in the 6th Semester.

The Notion of Credit

A student needs to earn a required number of credits in order to successfully complete a

degree. The credit is closely related to the number of stipulated classes a student has to
complete. The following table indicates the number of credit a student can earh for each
type of indicated classes
Enrollment in local colleges, 2005

Class Duration Credit

1 Theory Class 1 Hour 1

2 Tutorial Class 1 Hour 1

1 Practical Class 2 Hours 1

Total 998 908

Papers and Credits

The following table gives you an idea about the number of papers one MUST one must
study in a certain degree course and the total credit it contains.

Degree Minimum Paper Requirements Minimum

Credit

Undergraduate Degree with Honours 14 Core 148

(ALL Disciplines) 2 Ability Enhancement
2 Skill Enhancement
4 Discipline Specific Elective
4 Generic Elective

Undergraduate Regular Degree(Science) 12 Core 124

2 Ability Enhancement
2 Skill Enhancement
6 Discipline Specific Elective

Undergraduate Regular 10 Core

Degree(Humanities/Social Sci/Commerce) 2 Ability Enhancement
2 Skill Enhancement
8 Discipline Specific Elective

Total 998 908

How is the credit counted :

One credit per semester is equal to one hour of teaching, which includes both lecture (L)
or tutorial (T) or two hours of practical work/field work (P) per week. A study course
can have only L component or only T or P component or combination of any two or all
the three components. The total credits earned by a student for each semester is L+T+P.