Mumbai: Bindu Goswami (name changed), a BA student from a city college, along with many of her classmates, planned to pursue the fourth year of the undergraduate programme. When she enrolled in 2023-24, the course was marketed as a four-year degree with the flexibility to exit after three years. Aspiring to build a career in clinical psychology, she was convinced that the four-year honours programme would help her academic and global career prospects.In April, though, the college informed students it would not be able to admit all eligible aspirants to the fourth year. Faced with limited options, Goswami is now considering taking a gap year.While Mumbai University was among the first few universities in the country to implement the National Education Policy (NEP) in its entirety in 2023-24, the rollout of its four-year undergraduate programme for the first batch has fallen short of expectations. Initially, colleges reported limited student interest, with only around 15%-20% of each batch opting to pursue the fourth year. However, even colleges that were willing to offer the programme to these students were unable to do so after the university issued its implementation guidelines.In April, a college principal said, instead of devising a way to make the implementation smoother across colleges, the university stated that colleges with postgraduate departments in those majors will only be allowed to offer the fourth year. “The govt and the UGC policy recommended that the university should come up with a mechanism for courses where colleges do not have postgraduate departments. Instead, the university made it mandatory for autonomous colleges to seek permission from the university’s academic council to start PG programmes, which it never did to date,” said the principal.MU has more than 950 affiliated colleges, including around 130 autonomous ones. When NEP was introduced in 2023-24, it was implemented only in the autonomous colleges at the time, estimated to be around 65-70. While less than 10% of the university’s affiliated colleges have their first NEP batch reaching the fourth year this academic year, these colleges account for a large share of the university’s student population.In another circular, the MU directed colleges to restrict the intake of fourth year within the sanctioned capacity of the PG programmes. “With this condition, colleges will be forced to prioritise their PG admissions, as we would not want our seats to go vacant in the second year,” said a principal.Principal of Jai Hind College Vijay Dabholkar said the college planned the fourth year for self-financed programmes, even tie-ups with foreign universities, as initially there was no mandate on having PG departments. “But when this was made a prerequisite, we decided not to offer it this year. It was a setback for students who were interested. We do not wish to disturb our master’s programmes, which are doing well,” he said.At Mithibai College, the administration divided the PG intake proportionately for master’s students and the ones who are keen on exiting after fourth year. “There was a demand for courses such as psychology, microbiology and computer science, but we had to limit the intake,” said principal Krutika Desai. She also is unsure why the fourth-year admissions are being considered as fresh admissions and students’ details are being uploaded on the portal when it is expected to be a natural progression.Anushree Lokur, principal of Ramnarain Ruia College, said the college has reserved a few seats across all postgraduate programmes, as most seats are filled during the master’s admissions process. “For many courses, the number of applications for the fourth-year honours is low. In others, such as psychology and some science programmes, we have seen a decent interest among students, but we are unable to accommodate everyone because very few seats remain after master’s admissions,” Lokur said.A university official, though, said there was not much demand and for students who are keen on pursuing the fourth-year honours programme, there are other options, including the Mumbai University departments, where seats were available. He added detailed guidelines for courses without PG departments will be issued next year and approval will be granted in advance, when a majority of colleges will have their fourth-year batch.
