New Delhi: The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has suggested a slew of reforms, regulations and concepts. One of them is the establishment of Academic Bank Of Credits (ABC), which will store academic credits earned from different higher educational institutions (HEI) digitally and allow learners who drop out at some point to continue with higher education through more flexible and wider learning opportunities.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) proposed to set up a National Academic Credit Bank (NAC-Bank) in December 2019. This model drew references from prevalent Academic Credit Banking System in South Korea, European Credit Transfer & Accumulation System in European Union and Academic Credit Stacking System in the USA and Canada.
ABC would be a virtual entity to be established and managed by the Education Ministry or UGC. It would function like a commercial bank which students as customers and account holders to whom the bank will provide a variety of services including credit verification and degree authentication.
The academic credits earned by a student can be automatically credited to his/her account. After accumulation of credits to certain level(s), the student can redeem the credits for any employment purpose or academic programme at any convenient time.
NAC-Bank will be linked to national academic depository (NAD) and the accounts will be provided to students studying in any recognised HEI.
It will facilitate integration of campuses and distributed learning system by creating course mobility of students within inter and intra-University. It works on the principle of multiple entry-multiple exit from a course and provides mobility between Degree/Diploma/PG Diploma/ Certificate Programme.
All credits required for an award of certification will be available through NAC-Bank educational transcript. The transcript may also mention specific grades to indicate performance level of the concerned student for each module or unit, or for entire qualification. It may also reveal the difficulty level of the particular module.
National schemes like NPTEL, SWAYAM and SWAYAM PRABHA should also be considered for earning of credits. The system through a qualification framework recognises learning outcomes from all form of prior learning.
The major functions of ABC are credit accumulation, credit transfers and credit redemption. The credit system could be highly beneficial to the student community as it will percolate the autonomy to its lowest level, claims UGC.
Students (both national and international), parents, HEIs, industries, teachers and faculty members, government and statutory bodies, NGOs will be the stakeholders of this system.
The scheme will entail transfer of credits from one institution to another, one department to another, one specialization to the other to facilitate migration of students between institutions formally qualified to be a part of the NAC-Bank system.
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