“We need to upgrade our syllabus and bring in some uniformity also to ensure mobility in higher education. We are talking of foreign universities coming in and Indian universities wanting to establish campuses abroad. But we must first begin by raising our own standards to meet global demands,” said Vice-Chancellor Chandra Krishnamurthy.

Accordingly, SNDT will introduce a semester and credit-based system from the 2008-09 academic year.

Among issues discussed at the vice-chancellors’ meeting, said Krishnamurthy, was that there should be some commonality in the syllabus being offered by the state universities to allow migration of students. “A semester and credit system is essential if we want to have a common curriculum. And SNDT has made a beginning in that direction,” she said.

She said that each university had its own expertise. “And students in a semester and credit-based structure can do specialisation from another university for which it is known for,” said Krishnamurthy.

The university’s new syllabus will be divided into six semesters covering around six subjects in each. From now on, all examinations will be based on the new system where one credit will be equivalent to 25 marks. Each semester will typically have minimum four to maximum six courses, that is, 400 to 600 marks or 16 credits to 24 credits.

Significantly, the new format will incorporate “add-on” features within the syllabus. For instance, a science or engineering student who wants to learn a foreign language will be able to take it as an add-on.

Pro Vice-Chancellor S S Mantha said that every course had to have 75-80 per cent core content and the remaining should address the add-ons and contemporary issues. “If a single semester has four theory papers, then two could have content of practicals and assignments, that is, continuous evaluation. Again, if there are 20 credits in a semester, of this 16 can be the core content and the rest should have the value additions,” he said.

Mantha said that what was good about such a system was that it allowed students to accumulate credits and switch on to another university wherein the credits could be seamlessly integrated. And for the seamless acceptance, he said, one needed to aim for a fully convertible credit system, which implied that the standards would have to be on par with the best in the world.

“Hence, the new system will automatically raise the quality of education offered. And it’s easier to go to another university, within the country or abroad, with the credit-based structure than with the present marks-based system,” added Mantha.

While the concept was passed by the university’s Academic Council last year, the respective deans and faculty members have been instructed to devise the new syllabus in keeping with new format. “We also collaborate with foreign universities and the new system can enable more students of our university to go abroad and vice versa,” said Krishnamurthy.