New Delhi, 08 December 2020: The University Grants Commission (UGC), the higher education regulator, has asked all universities and colleges to promote Apprenticeship/Internship embedded Degree Programmes.
The UGC has released the detailed guidelines: UGC Guidelines for Higher Education institutions to offer Apprenticeship/lnternship embedded Degree Programme for embedding apprenticeship/internship in general degree programmes offered by the Universities.
Students pursuing regular degree courses such as BA, BCom, BSc, among others, can undertake internships or Apprenticeship as part of their course. Till now students in professional courses like engineering, technology and management are able to undertake internships.
The UGC Guidelines say that any UG degree programme will have an option to embed at least one semester of apprenticeship / internship as part of the degree prograrnme without altering the total duration of the programme.
Credits Mechanism of Internships: The total credits assigned to a particular degree programme will continue to follow the Choice Based Credit System (CBCS). Accordingly, a student will have to earn 132 credits for the award of undergraduate degree. Credits for apprenticeship/ internship training may be suitably accommodated in theCBCS by the universities.
The higher education regulator has also asked universities and colleges to award 20 per cent of the total credits to the internships if they select to offer students embedded degree programmes.
Apprenticeship and internship can play significant role in reducing existing skill gaps in the university education system as apprenticeship is considered as the most-efficient and promising structured training for exposure to the real working environment.
Hence, regular degree courses could see significant changes in their structure as these courses will offer Apprenticeship or Internship as per the UGC Guidelines. The UGC Guidelines for Higher Education Institutions to offer Apprenticeship/Internship embedded Degree Programme was released recently by the Union Minister of Education.
