Choice Based Credit System (CBCS)

Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) Regulations

In the year 2013 Choice Based Credit System was introduced for undergraduate courses in Arts, Science and Commerce. Further in the year 2016 the new Choice Based Credit System was introduced in accordance with UGC guidelines. The CBCS provides an opportunity for the students to choose courses from the prescribed courses comprising core, elective and skill based courses. The courses can be evaluated following grading system, which is considered to be better than the conventional marking system. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce uniform grading system in the entire higher education in India. This will benefit the student's to move across institutions within India and across countries. The uniform grading system will also enable potential employers in assessing the performance of the candidates. In order to bring uniformity in evaluation system and computation of the Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) based on student's performance in examinations, the UGC has formulated the guidelines to be followed.

1. Core Course / Discipline Specific Course (DSC) :

A Course, which should compulsorily be studied by a candidate as a core requirement is termed as a core course. Core course is also referred as Discipline Specific Course (DSC). The course, designed under this category, aims to cover the basics that a student is expected to imbibe in that particular discipline.

2. Elective Course :

Generally a course which can be chosen from a pool of courses and which maybe very specific or specialized or advanced or supportive to the discipline/subject of study or which provides an extended scope or which enables an exposure to some other discipline/subject/domain or nurtures the proficiency/skill is called an Elective Course.

(i) Discipline Specific Elective (DSE) Course :

Elective courses offered under the main discipline/subject of study are referred to as Discipline Specific Elective course. The University/Institute may also offer discipline related Elective courses of interdisciplinary nature (to be offered by main discipline/subject of study).

(ii) Dissertation/Project Work :

An elective course of 6 credits, designed to acquire special/advanced knowledge, such as supplement study/support study to a project work, and a candidate studies such a course on his own with an advisory support by a teacher/faculty member is called dissertation/project work. A Project/Dissertation work may be given in lieu of a discipline specific elective paper.

(iii) Generic Elective (GE) Course :

An elective course chosen generally from an unrelated discipline / subject, with an intention to seek exposure to other subjects/disciplines is called a Generic Elective Course.

Note : A core course offered in a discipline/subject may be treated as an elective by other discipline/subject and vice versa and such electives may also be referred to as Generic Elective.

3. Ability Enhancement Courses :

The Ability Enhancement Courses may be of two kinds :Ability Enhancement Compulsory Courses (AECC) and Skill Enhancement Courses (SEC).

(i) Ability Enhancement Compulsory Course (AECC) :

These are the courses based upon the content that leads to knowledge enhancement. AECC to be studied are i) Environmental Science and ii) English/Hindi/Sanskrit. These are mandatory for all disciplines.

(ii) Skill Enhancement Courses (SEC) :

These courses may be chosen from a pool of courses designed to provide value-based and/or skill based knowledge and are aimed at providing hands-on-training, competencies, skills etc. to increase the employ ability of students.

Duration (Time Frame) :

The Under Graduate program is for a minimum period of three years and a maximum of five years, from the date of admission of the candidate. From the academic session 2018-2019, the H.P. State Govt. switched over from semester system to the annual system.

Credits :

The term “Credit” refers to the weight-age given to a course, usually in terms of the number of instructional hours per week assigned to it. This explains why usually „credit‟ is taken to mean “credit hours”. The credits also determine the volume of course contents and delivery of program such as lectures, tutorials, practicals, assignments etc. For the purpose of credit determination, instruction is divided into three components :-

• Lectures (L) – Classroom lectures of one hour duration.
• Tutorials (T) – Special, elaborate instructions on
specific topics (from lectures) of one hour duration.
• Practicals (P) – Laboratory or field exercises in which the student has to do experiments or other practical work of two hours duration.

The Total minimum credits required for an undergraduate degree program is one hundred thirty two (132)

Summary of credits for BA & BCom

Summary of credits for BSc

Evaluation/Assessment :

All courses involve an evaluation system of students that has two components :
A) Continuous Comprehensive Assessment(CCA).
B) Term End Examination (TEE).

A) Continuous Comprehensive Assessment (CCA) :

Continuous Comprehensive Assessment accounts for 30 % of the final grade that a student gets in a course of study.

This would have the following components :

• (I) Classroom attendance : Each student will have to attend a minimum of 75% Lectures/Tutorials /Practicals. A student having less than 75% attendance will not be allowed to appear in the Term End Examination (TEE).
• a) Provided that those having between 74% and 65% attendance will apply for exemption in a prescribed form accompanied by clear reason(s) for absence, to the authorized functionaries.
• b) Provided that those having between 64% and 50% attendance will apply for exemption in a prescribed form accompanied with a Medical Certificate from a Government Hospital. Exemption from 75% attendance will be given to those students who have participated in prescribed co-curricular activities (e.g. NCC, NSS, Eco-Club, Rovers and Rangers, Youth Festivals, Sports, etc.) Exemption to the extent of 25% will be given to such students (making the necessary attendance as 50% in these cases).

Further those students getting the exemption, except for those getting exemption for co-curricular activities, will not be entitled to the CCA marks for classroom attendance.

Classroom Attendance Incentive : The students having greater than 75% attendance and who also participated in co-curricular activities, 25% will be added to percent attendance.

All students will get weight-age for attendance as enlisted below :

≥ 75 but < 80% 1 marks
≥ 80 but <85% 2marks
≥ 85 but <90% 3 marks
≥ 90 but <95 % 4 marks
≥ 95% 5 marks

B) Term End Examination (TEE) :

• For courses without practical, the remaining 70% of the final grade of the student in a course will be on the basis of a TEE that will be of three hours duration and will be covering the whole syllabus of the course.
• For courses with practical, the TEE (70% of the final grade of each course) will consist of Term End Practical Examination (20 % of the final grade)and Term End Theory Examination (50% of the final grade). Both will be of three hours duration, each.
• For the Odd semester the TEE will be in the month of October, and for the Even Semester and for the students appearing under Annual system of examination TEE will be in the month of April.
• A candidate who does not pass the examination (TEE) in any course(s) or due to some reason is not able to appear in the TEE (other conditions being fulfilled), shall be considered as „Fail. Such a failed candidate shall be permitted to appear in the subsequent TEE to be held in October or April as the case maybe.
• The registration for the TEE will be done at the time of enrollment for the course at the beginning of the academic session. The fee for the TEE will also be collected at that time as decided by the university from time to time.
• A student who is not permitted to appear in the TEE due to shortage of attendance beyond the exemption limit (<50% attendance) shall be deemed to have „dropped‟ the course. However, such a candidate on his/her written request (made immediately), can be permitted to redo the missed course after completing the rest of the program or whenever the course is offered subsequently. This redoing would mean complete course including CCA and TEE.

Grievances and Redressal Mechanism :

The student will have the right to make an appeal against any components of evaluations. Such appeal has to be made to the Grievance Redressal Committee (GRC), chaired by the RUSA Coordinator. The Committee will consider the case and may give a personal hearing to the appellant before deciding the case. The decision of the Committee will be final. The result would be declared by the COE of the Himachal Pradesh University and the degree (or certificate or diploma as the case may be) conferred.

Grading :

Credit Weighed Marking System : Performance of a student is evaluated in terms of credits earned in Credit Weighed Marking System. Earned credits are defined as the sum of course credits in which grade points above a certain cut off have been obtained for declaring the learner “Pass” in that course.

In this way two performance indices emerge :

a) Grade Point Average (GPA)

b) Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA)

Note :-
CCA is subjected to modify as per HPU guidelines during the covid-19 Pandemic