Karnataka Protest UGC’s Order on Biannual Admissions: People of the Karnataka State are against the order passed by the UGC: University Grants Commission, order on implementing biannual admissions at the Higher Educational Institutions. This decision was in synchronization with the National Education Policy (NEP) and the target set by the UGC early this year, to increase the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) of higher education in India to 50% by 2035. The UGC in its directive, therefore, mandated HEIs to admit students twice a year, that is, in July-August and January-February, based on the availability of infrastructure, teaching resources, and support systems and with the concurrence of the institutional statutory bodies.

Karnataka Relents:
He has also stated that the UGC directive is aimed at thrusting the foreign education models into the country without assessing the pros and cons associated with the educational system of the country. He has also stated that most of the HEIs within the state of Karnataka face a severe lack of enough teaching faculty members, infrastructure, and admissions, and therefore find the UGC directive impractical to be implemented in the state. Moreover, he was right in objecting to the kind of decision taken by UGC without consultation with the State Government or the stakeholders.

Activist’s perspective:
Following such an argument is the question which was raised by the education activist, Sripada Bhat, on the bi-annual admission system under NEP. He tried to say that UGC’s claim—GER would increase with biennial admissions—is unscientific and underlined a fact that the rise in dropout rates and the reasons behind should be looked at seriously. He also said SEP report will be implemented soon in the State of Karnataka where the report will contradict the UGC claims on the biannual admission system.

University Reply :
The Vice-Chancellor of Bangalore University, S.M. Jayakara, reasoned that the introduction of biannual admissions in Karnataka might bring in some degree of challenge to the system, especially in the existing three annual examination system for II PUC and the existing admission is still on for degree courses. In these several dimensions—viz., semester, course, faculty, and examinations—he detailed what ideally should be involved in the implementation of biannual admission.

UGC’s Rationality behind Introducing Biannual Admissions Enabling biannual admissions in higher education institutions has been decided by the University Grants Commission to be implemented following through on the guideline of the National Education Policy 2020 in an attempt to increase the GER. The UGC believes that GER can be drastically improved if the biannual admissions system is introduced. With increased access to higher education, flexibility to students and institutions, better utilization of infrastructure, attraction to international students, and more collaboration with foreign universities will accelerate.

UGC’s Take on Biannual Admissions: Jagadeesh Kumar, the UGC Chairman, shared his opinion on biannual admissions by saying that with this, the Gross Enrollment Ratio can achieve a massive zone and leave India as a global magnetic study destination. In addition, he pointed to the benefits for those students who might have missed the admission on a July/August session on different cases; it would save them from a waiting period of a whole academic year until the next admission session. For its part, the UGC maintains that offering biannual admissions is not something that every higher education institution needs to do, but rather is a flexible scheme for any institution that has the infrastructure as well as teaching staff.

Finally, this move by the UGC is a sufficient indicator of good intentions, while the opposition by the Karnataka state government and a number of other critical stakeholders shows the level of challenge and complexity that the UGC’s implementation of biannual admissions systems entails for the state. These divergent perspectives need the due weight of practical implications and amenability within the given educational policies and infrastructure design particular to the state.