Mumbai: In the next academic session from June, city colleges will see an additional batch of UG students across several courses as the first cohort enters the fourth year under National Education Policy 2020. With limited infrastructure to accommodate the additional academic load, autonomous colleges are planning to run the fourth year on a staggered schedule, while some are considering conducting classes in shifts. There has been a lukewarm response from students to pursuing the fourth year, making it difficult for colleges to plan the schedule in advance. Many colleges are also planning to restrict the fourth year to a limited number of programmes for now, citing space constraints, among other concerns.Mithibai College plans to operate in shifts as it prepares to introduce the fourth year across all UG courses. Principal Krutika Desai said the master’s programmes already run in afternoons and evenings. For courses with an existing PG department, the schedules for the fourth year and the first year of the master’s programme will be aligned. “For other programmes, we have prepared fourth year as well as PG syllabi and are waiting to discuss it in the governing board,” she said, adding that for those, they have to look for availability of classrooms in the later part of the day. St Xavier’s College plans to follow a staggered schedule for fourth year programmes. “For some papers that are common to the PG courses, we will combine the classes and for others, we plan to start with staggered timings,” said principal Karuna Gokarn. The college, though, has prepared the syllabi for the fourth year for all programmes and is awaiting govt guidelines. At Matunga’s Ramnarain Ruia College, the fourth year will be offered in science programmes only. “We are offering it for courses where we have PG departments. And classes will be clubbed with first-year PG students. For arts courses, at the moment, we are not planning to start the fourth year, except for psychology,” said principal Anushree Lokur. Jai Hind College plans to offer the fourth-year option only for self-financed courses such as BMS, BAF, BBI and BBA for now. “We have well-established PG departments that are functioning well, and we do not wish to disturb them at the moment. There is also not a strong response from students for the fourth year. Instead, we plan to offer the option to students from self-financed programmes,” said principal Vijay Dabholkar. The college has sent its proposal to the university and is awaiting a response. Dabholkar said due to space constraints, classes will be scheduled in the second shift in the afternoon, and part of the programme will also involve internships.
