The proposal, drafted by Pro Vice-Chancellor S K Tandon, Chairman of the Empowered Committee for the Implementation of Semester System (ECISS) , has been placed on the university website. Each semester is to be of 19-week duration. The first will run from July 19 to December 4 and the second from January 3 to May 14.

Both will have 15 weeks of teaching, two weeks of exams, a week each of preparatory holidays for examinations and mid-semester breaks. Results, expected to be a hurdle in the new system, are to be declared between December 20 and 30 for the first semester, and between June 1 and 15 for the second.

While the Honours Programme has been retained, it will be made interdisciplinary. Therefore, a two-domain structure, which will see the introduction of a “Minor” subject along with a “Major” subject, has been proposed.

There will be four papers per semester for all undergraduate courses (Honours, BA, BCom and BSc programmes), thus making a total of 24 papers spread across six semesters.

The “Major” subject for an Honours course will contribute 14 to 15 papers out of the 24. There will be three to four elective papers, which will include one compulsory paper each, in a language and computational techniques.

The “Minor” subjects chosen by a student will be of the same standard as the “Major”, even though the number of papers to be taken for a “Minor” will be fewer. But the question papers — for “Minor” and “Major” — in a subject will be the same.

Vice-Chancellor Deepak Pental has said that some courses will be dropped to avoid an “overload.”

Postgraduate admissions will be streamlined and the departments will be required to admit half their students from Honours courses on basis of marks. There will be an entrance examination for the other half. As of now, different postgraduate departments of the university have their own system to admit students. Students will be eligible to do a Master’s in a “Minor” subject if they clear the entrance examination.

The system proposes an additional compulsory course in Environmental Studies.

The ECISS will meet departmental heads on Thursday to discuss the document and invite suggestions. The document, after modifications, is expected to be tabled before the Academic Council by January 2010, so the entire process is completed by March.