UGC guidelines for pursuing 2 degrees: 5 points to remember

Making the announcement, UGC Chairman M Jagdesh Kumar earlier this week said, “As announced in the new National Education Policy (NEP) and in order to allow students to acquire multiple skills, UGC is coming up with new guidelines to allow a candidate to pursue two degree programmes in physical mode simultaneously.”

“The degrees can either be pursued from the same or different universities. Students will also be allowed to pursue two degree programmes in physical and online mode simultaneously,” he added.

UGC notifies guidelines for pursuing two academic programmes simultaneously

Following Kumar’s announcement, the commission issued detailed guidelines on the official website. Here are five things students should know:

1. A student can pursue two degrees in physical mode if class timings for one programme do not overlap with the class timings of the other programme.
2. A student can pursue one degree programme offline and another in online or open and distance learning (ODL) mode, or up to two programmes in online/ODL mode simultaneously.
3. Students should pursue online and ODL degrees only from those institutes which are recognized by the UGC, Statutory Council or Govt. of India.
4. Degree or diploma programmes under these guidelines shluld be governed by the regulations notified by the UGC and also the respective statutory/professional councils, wherever applicable.
5. The UGC guidelines are applicable only to the students pursuing academic programmes other than Ph.D.