In order to enhance the quality of education imparted to students, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has decided to adopt semester system for its undergraduate honours courses from this academic session. The semester system is approved by the university’s academic council taking into consideration the fact that semester system is feasible and desirable.
AMU controller of examination Pervez Mustajab confirmed the semester system and said that the academic year will be divided into two terms, the end will be marked by the semester examination. Internal assessments, lectures and workshops will be given special focus in the semester system.
The semester system will have more extensive syllabus and teaching methods which will increase learning opportunities. For example, in BA (Hons), students will study 15 main papers in addition to 12 papers of subsidiary subjects in a total span of three years. In the annual system, there were 10 papers of the main subject and six papers of the subsidiary subjects. There was one compulsory paper for English language which from this year is increased to three compulsory English papers.
All papers will now be of 100 marks. Earlier there was no uniformity of marks for different subjects. The weightage varied from 100 to 75 to 50 marks depending on the subject type. The compulsory English was for 75 marks but Hindi/Urdu or Modern European Languages (MIL) was for 50 marks. This way, total marks for a UG course for three years will be 2,700 (15*100 + 12*100). The decision to include marks of six compulsory subjects in the final report card is yet to be taken. So far, only 100 marks of compulsory English were added to the final scorecard.
The number of compulsory papers is increased from four to six with semester system in place. This includes three English papers (there was only one paper earlier), one paper of Hindi, Urdu or MIL, one paper of theology or history of civilisation and one paper imparting lessons on social responsibility or disaster management or other subjects made mandatory by the University Grants Commission (UGC). Another feature of the semester system is the inclusion of choice-based credit system. A student will have to earn 132 credits to get a degree.
