One-time promotion for 11,000 Delhi University postgraduate students

In a key move, Delhi University has decided to promote all postgraduate students of the 2024–25 batch into their second year. The university is set to roll out a new PG Curriculum Framework–2025 with the aim of making the transition smooth, thereby not causing academic disruption to roughly 11,000 learners.

Delhi University has decided to promote all postgraduate students enrolled in the session 2024–25 into the second year, notwithstanding whether they appeared for or cleared their first-year examinations.

This decision has been taken to ensure a smooth academic transition and as a preparatory step for implementation of the Post Graduate Curriculum Framework–2025 at the university.

The structure suggested is designed on the basis of the National Education Policy and is likely to replace the existing Choice-Based Credit System and Learning Outcome-based Curriculum Framework.

This incompatibility, according to university officials, was due to a structural mismatch between the new model and the two existing frameworks.

The officials said the retention of students in older systems would lead to an academic disruption besides delaying the implementation of a new curriculum.

"Keeping students under the previous frameworks would have created gaps in course continuity. The decision ensures that no student's academic journey is disrupted," said a senior university official involved in the transition process.

The move will affect around 11,000 students enrolled in over 80 postgraduate programs at the university.

Thus, all eligible students will now be promoted to Semester III as regular learners, thereby allowing the institution to complete the shift to PGCF-2025 without overlap between the old and new structures.

Officials said it only applies to the 2024-25 batch and will not set any kind of precedence for subsequent years.

They termed this an administrative necessity in these times of curriculum reform.

PGCF-2025 aims to align postgraduate learning to the aspirations of NEP through its multidisciplinary courses, flexible learning paths, and skill-based evaluation. The curriculum also focuses on research exposure, cross-departmental electives, and a shift away from rote learning to application-based understanding. The decision to promote has come as a respite for the thousands of students while a section of the faculty expressed apprehensions over its long-term implications. They believe the move to automatic promotion would weaken the assessment process and affect academic rigour. However, university officials argue that such a decision was reached after much deliberation and that academic standards would be maintained by follow-up assessments under the new curriculum. Delhi University said the promotion process would be completed before the beginning of the next academic session and detailed guidelines in this regard would be shared soon with all departments.