Professional skills in undergrad soon

NEWDELHI: The Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry was working on a proposal to make professional skill learning a part of courses like BA and Bcom in an attempt to improve students’ prospects of getting employed, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar said on Monday.

Under the initiatives, universities and colleges will be able to offer a new set of undergraduate programmes in Arts, Science and Commerce streams that will provide 1,000 hours of additional courses on “soft skills” and the information communication technology (ICT).

The upcoming undergraduate programmes, likely to be named as BA (professional), Bsc-(professional) and Bcom (professional), might be introduced from the next year. Students clearing their Class 12 examinations will be eligible for admission to the programmes based on their marks.

Addressing a press conference, Javadekar said students who take admission in traditional BA, BSC and Bcom programmes often face problems in securing a job as the curriculum of these courses doesn’t offer professional skills that they must acquire by the time they graduate.

“Introduction of the Ba(professional), Bsc(professional) and Bcom(professional) courses will enhance the employability of the graduates,” he said.

He added that out of the 1,000 hours of additional courseware to be earmarked for the proposed undergraduate programmes, 250 hours will be reserved for equipping students with soft skills and another 250 hours for lessons on ICT.

The minister also said that the much-awaited National Education Policy (NEP) will be announced soon.

“A zero draft of the national education policy is now ready. A four-hour long presentation was made before me only yesterday (Sunday) by the committee which has drafted it. We will now share it with the peer groups and give it a final shape to make it public after due procedures,” he said.