No-admission year for PG courses at JU & Presidency

Kolkata: For unitary universities like Jadavpur University (JU) and Presidency University (PU), it is ‘zero year’ for postgraduate programmes in order to facilitate the shift from a two-year PG programme to a one-year PG programme as per NEP 2020.

As the varsities are running a four-year undergraduate (UG) programme as per NEP 2020, where the current fourth-year batch is equivalent to the first-year PG batch of the old system, there will be no admission this year to the postgraduate (PG) courses.

Students who took admission to the four-year UG courses in 2023 will graduate in 2027. While JU did not provide an exit option after three years, PU had an exit option after three years, but no students applied to exit any course after their third year.

Rabindra Bharati University (RBU), on the other hand, will continue to take in students to its two-year master's admission this year for those who will exit after three years from the four-year UG programme.

Presidency registrar Debajyoti Konar said, “Like most unitary universities, it is a ‘zero-year’ for PG programmes in the Presidency University departments that are running their four-year UG courses. In those cases, one-year PG programmes will commence from next year. However, stand-alone interdisciplinary PG programmes in emerging areas like astrophysics, molecular biotechnology, virology & immunology having no bachelor program in base can continue to run as a two-year PG programme.”

A JU official said, “There will be no admission to the master's programme of both day and evening courses this year due to the 4+1 system as per NEP 2020. We do not have any student graduating this year to take admission in master's. They are in their UG fourth year and will graduate in 2027. So we will admit students to a one-year PG programme from 2027.”

JU Bengali professor Rajyeswar Sinha said, “It is difficult for a unitary university to simultaneously provide a one-year PG course and a two-year PG course due to space issues and teaching load. As most students across the state are in four-year UG programmes, skipping PG admission this year will not be an issue.”

An RBU official said, “For those students who will exit after completing their third year, the two-year master's programme will be kept open. Admission to the master's courses in arts, fine arts and visual arts will begin in Aug.”