IIT Kharagpur has introduced a four-year BS (bachelor of science) course in place of the existing five-year integrated MSc programme, in keeping with the National Education Policy that mandates that students must be allowed to exit a programme between degrees.
The dual-degree programme (BSc and MSc) has been scrapped and students can now exit with a bachelor degree after taking admission through JEE Advanced.
“Those who would like to earn MS (master of science) degree would be given an option to do so at the end of sixth semester of the four-year undergraduate programme. Accordingly, seventh and eighth semesters would be planned so that a candidate gets MS degree at the end of tenth semester,” an announcement uploaded on the institute’s website says.
An official of the institute said the exit option was introduced so that a student could exercise the option of pursuing master’s from a place of his or her choice.
The BS programme has been introduced in applied geology, chemistry, economics, exploration geophysics, mathematics and computing and physics.
IIT Kharagpur made the announcement days after the results of JEE Advanced were announced. The IITs admit students through JEE Advanced.
A teacher in IIT Kharagpur’s science faculty said the sweeping changes in the education policy included
replacing the three-year undergraduate course into a four-year one with multiple entry and exit points to make higher education more job oriented.
“As part of this, IIT Kharagpur has introduced the four-year bachelor of science programme. We cannot force a student to pursue postgraduation from here in the name of the integrated MSc course. Some of the IITs have shifted to four-year BS programmes. If we don’t, bright students cracking JEE Advanced won’t come to IIT Kharagpur,” he said.
A teacher at the IIT said that across the country students were losing interest in pursuing the dual-degree programme.
“The integrated five-year dual-degree course (BTech and MTech) at IIT Kharagpur could also see the introduction of an exit option,” he said.
Another teacher said the four-year BS course would help students who wanted to go abroad to pursue master’s.
In December 2016, IIEST, Shibpur, had decided that students would get an option to exit the five-year dual-degree course after the fourth year.