MU to introduce nine ‘intensive’ postgraduate programmes

The courses will make students ‘ready for the market’, say educationists who studied UK system

The recent visit by a delegation of Mumbai educationists to the universities in the UK, will prove to be a beneficial one for future postgraduate aspirants. The reason — Mumbai University, and some of its affiliated colleges are now in the process of introducing one-year, intensive postgraduate programmes that aim to mould students to become more adept in their respective fields.

The delegation — led by Mumbai Sheriff and HR College principal Indu Shahani, and Mumbai University vice-chancellor Vijay Khole, along with several other college principals — visited UK’s leading educational institutions to observe the top study policies being followed there.

“PG programmes in the UK are being converted from two years to intensive one-year programmes to aid students. So we mulled over the option of starting a similar system here, which will help students tremendously. Subsequently, we are now in the process of developing a total of nine such intensive, and important academic programmes of a one-year duration,” said Khole.

The primary focus is to design courses that are applied practically and make students “ready for the market”.

Prime minister Manmohan Singh was recently briefed about the observations made by the delegation during its UK visit. “We wanted to inform the PM about the intention of our visit, our learning and to receive his opinion on the matter. He was supportive of our suggestions, and stressed the need to implement more skill-oriented courses, and vocational education”, said Ruia College principal, Suhas Pednekar.

Colleges are also helping in developing the courses, with HR College helping to initiate four courses, and Sophia College developing five programmes for the university.
“Several other colleges are helping us in this endeavour. The programmes will have to go through the board of studies, and will have to be presented to the academic council for approval,” said Shahani.

Sophia College principal, Anila Verghese said, that the core content has been developed with the help of the university. “Once approved, they can be implemented from the next academic year. Colleges which want to run the programmes will have to seek the necessary permission from the university,” said Verghese.

She said that since the programmes will be of a 12-month duration, while developing the curriculum, the focus will be on quality.

“Utmost care was given to ensure that there is no compromise on quality,” said Verghese.