UGC approves amendement rules for educational collaborations between Indian and International Universities offering dual and joint degrees programs
UGC eases the process of Indian and international collaborative education by approving dual and joint degrees with foreign universities. Also Read Students Can Pursue 2 Full-Time Courses Together: UGC
Students can now pursue a single course in both Indian and foreign institutions easily. This extends the vision of UGC to broaden the scope of quality higher education for the Indian students.
The programs under these new amendments will be offered from undergraduate to PhD levels, and will directly come into effect from 2022-23 onwards. For Ph.D. programs, the students will be provided separate arrangements and supervision in the respective institutions, however, they will have to stay for a minimum of 1 semester at each institution. Courses available online or for distance learning will not come under this amendment.
UGC has introduced 3 types of degrees for students under such collaborative educational programs, which are Dual Degrees, Joint Degrees, and Twinning Degrees. But such degrees will be applicable to students in the same discipline, and at the same level.
In the Dual Degrees program, the program will be offered by the two collaborative institutions at the same level of the same subject. The degree will be provided by the two institutions separately and simultaneously. But to avail this degree, the students must complete 30% of their courses at a foreign university.
Students willing to pursue Joint Degree programs will be offered collaborative study content designed by both the institutes, Indian and foreign. However, unlike Dual Degrees, a single joint degree will be conferred to the students upon completing the course. The student must complete 30% of their course at the collaborative foreign institution to get this particular degree. UGC will not approve the credit points earned from overlapping courses, under Dual and Joint degree programs.
Whereas a Twinning Degree demands students to pursue a program partly in India and partly in a foreign university, but the degree will be awarded by the Indian university only. To avail this degree, students will have to complete 30% of their course credit at the foreign university, and the same rules apply to the foreign students willing to collaborate with Indian universities too.
The regulations announced are not made public for the first time, some of these were previously drafted and shared in 2012 and 2016. But due to the number of very few action takers, the need to ease the process was felt by the UGC. And for that reason, the UGC has announced this new amendment while making the application and approval process further easier.
According to this newly released amendment, Indian institutions partner will easily be considered for such partnerships with foreign universities by just getting accredited with a minimum score of 3.01 out of 4 points by NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council) or securing a position among the top 100 universities in the National Institutional Ranking Framework. However, the foreign collaborative institutions must be among the world’s top 1000 universities in the Times Higher Education and QS World University Rankings.
In the previous draft released by UGC, the ranking for foreign universities was bounded upto 500. When UGC chairman M. Jagadesh Kumar was asked for this change, he said “The increased bandwidth is only to allow more institutes to partner and offer more choices to the students.”
Students who are willing to avail these programs will have to go abroad to pursue the programs, but taking admission separately is not required.