UGC-India Allows Students to Pursue Two Full-Time Academic Programs Simultaneously in Physical, Online or Combination mode.

In a virtual meeting with the media UGC-India Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar revealed UGC’s latest plan to allow students to pursue two simultaneous academic programmes, including full-time degree courses.

He said that in accordance to the National Education Policy (NEP), the latest move aims to offer flexibility and personalisation of higher education and even allow multidisciplinary education across various domains for students.

With this decision, students will be able to pursue two UG or PG degrees/diplomas together in the Physical+Physical mode or Physical+Online mode or Online+Online mode.

Earlier, the UGC-India regulations did not allow students to pursue two full-time programmes and they could only pursue one full-time degree along with online/short-term/diploma courses.

The guidelines will apply to all the programmes available across the country. Students can either choose a combination of a diploma programme and an undergraduate (UG) degree, two master’s programmes, or two bachelor’s programmes. If a student is eligible to pursue a postgraduate (UG) degree and also wants to enrol in a bachelor’s degree in a different domain, he/she will be able to pursue a UG and PG degree simultaneously. The class timing for both the programmes must not clash.

Since all academic programs require minimum attendance for students to be able to take the exam, universities will have to formulate attendance criteria for these courses. “UGC does not mandate any attendance requirements and these are the policies of the universities,” Kumar said.

Kumar also notified that top universities of India have been given the choice to offer online degree courses and that fresh guidelines for the same will be notified in two weeks.

The official list of UGC guidelines for pursuing two simultaneous degrees or academic programmes is expected to be uploaded on the UGC website tomorrow. The new move will be application from the academic year 2022-23 onwards.

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