It is an instructional package developed to suit the needs of students to keep pace with the developments in higher education worldwide. This system helps the student in moving out of isolated compartmentalized learning environment. The student in this system has considerable freedom in choosing courses and so making his / her own personalized programme/ bouquet in a cafeteria mode keeping in mind necessary requirements of a major course. Except for the compulsory and core courses of the subject of his / her major, he / she is free to choose courses of his /her choice. The programme is considered completed when the student cumulates the requisite number of successful credits (passed), i.e. at least 106 credits for an undergraduate degree.

EMESTER SYSTEM

Semester in Latin means six monthly or either of the two six monthly academic terms with a following typical look involving teaching for 15 weeks for a 6 day week excluding duration of minor exams, tests end term examinations and semester breaks.

TUTORIAL

Session Consists of participatory discussion/desk work/ problem solving/ brief seminar on a topic or any such other novel method that makes learners absorb and assimilate more effectively the contents delivered in a lecture session. Normally, the tutorial sheets prepared by the teacher are distributed in advance to help learner prepare for interaction systematically.

PRACTICAL/PRACTICE

Session consists of hands on experience/ laboratory experiments/ Field Studies/ Case studies that equip students to acquire the much required skill component.

ELIGIBILITY FOR ADMISSION IN IST SEMESTER

A pass in the Senior Secondary (+2) Examination (Academic Stream) conducted by the H.P Board of School Education or an examination accepted as equivalent thereto by the various bodies of the H.P. University.

• Provided that the candidates who have passed the qualifying examination with science stream shall be given preference in admission to B.Sc.
• Provided that the candidates who have passed the qualifying examination with commerce stream shall be given preference in admission to B.Com. CBCS for Undergraduate Courses programme.

CHOOSING PROGRAM STUDY COURSES

At the time of admission each student will identify a major (main) subject in which he / she will specialize and two minor (allied) elective subjects which he / she would choose to study.

Major would be the subject in which the student will have to take core courses as defined below prescribed by the concerned UG Board of Studies and the Faculty.

Major once identified would not be changed unless the student quits a programme and joins a new programme.

Minor, on the other hand, would be the subjects that would be chosen by the student out of a number of subject combinations (at least two subjects in each subject combination) suggested and approved by the UG BoS and Faculty of a student's major subject.

In these subjects the student will be required to accumulate a certain minimum number of credits in order to qualify for the UG degree.

FOR THE DEGREE

A regular candidate shall have to undergo the prescribed courses of study in a College affiliated to the H.P. University for a period not less than three academic years (and not more than five academic years). Each academic year shall comprise of two semesters, viz. Odd and Even semesters. Odd Semesters shall be from June / July to October / November and the Even Semester shall be from November / December to April / May. There shall be no private or other category of students who shall be eligible for degree through regular mode.

BACHELORS DEGREE

Bachelor degree For a bachelor degree student will have to accumulate106 credits with 48 credits in Core Courses;48 credits in Elective Courses ( 24 in each of the two minor subjects studied) and minimum of 9 credits in Compulsory Courses; and a minimum of 1 credit in GI and H courses,provided that not more than three attempts will be allowed to pass a course.

MAJOR WITH EMPHASIS

When there are at least 15 credits in excess with a minimum of 'A' grade.

MAJOR (HONOURS)

120 credits in total with minimum of 9 and maximum 18 credits in Compulsory Courses; 56 credits in Core Courses; 48 credits in Elective Courses ( a minimum of 24 credits in each of the minor subjects) and a minimum of 1 credit and maximum of 9 credits GI and H Courses.

Double Major (second major to be decided by the committee) when there are at least 30 credits in excess with a minimum of 'A' grade. However, on the other hand, such students who due to any reason are not able to complete the UG programme (i.e. are not able to accumulate 106 credits), will be considered for the following :

• Certificate in the major subject, if he/she has accumulated at least 48 credits in total with at least 16 credits in Core Courses.
• Diploma in the major subject, if he /she has accumulated at least 96 credits in total with at least 32 credits in core courses.

CREDITS

The term 'credit' refers to the weightage given to a course, usually in terms of the number of instructional hours per week assigned to it. This explains why usually 'credit' is taken to mean 'credit hours'. The credits also determine the volume of course contents and delivery of programme such as lectures, tutorials, practicals, assignments etc. The credit determination, is divided into three components:-

Lectures (L) - Classroom lectures of one hour duration.

Tutorials (T) - Special, elaborate instructions on specific topics (from Lectures) of one hour duration. Practicals (P) - Laboratory of field exercises in which the student has to do experiments or other practical work of two hour duration. Each one of these components is considered as equal to one credit. One lecture (L) as well as one.

Tutorial (T) of one hour a week is considered as one credit, whereas one Practical (P) of two hours a week is considered as one credit. The total weightage given to a course in terms of credits will be equal to L + T + P, where L is the number of one hour Lectures per week, T is the number of one hour Tutorials per week, and P is the number of two hour Practicals per week. This can be written in symbols as:- C = L + T + P

Where, C is the credit weightage for a particular course. The total minimum credits required for an under graduate degree programme is one hundred and twenty (120).

COURSE

A course is a structured set of instructions that are imparted to a student on the basis of a syllabus or a framework decided beforehand with the sanction of the different academic (Board of Studies, Faculty, Academic Council) and executive (Senate / Executive Council, Finance Committee) bodies of the HPU) which extended over a semester. Each course is designed variously under instructions given as Lectures, Tutorials, and Practicals (laboratory and field exercises). Usually these components are referred to as L, T, and P components. The credits for each course determine the volume of the course content.

COURSES IN PROGRAMMES

The UG (TDC) programme in a college affiliated to the HPU will comprise the following categories of courses:

(i) Compulsory Courses.

(ii) Core Courses.

(iii) Elective Courses.

(iv) General Interest and Hobby Courses.

COMPULSORY COURSES: A student enrolled in an undergraduate programme will have to pass some compulsory courses. These compulsory courses are of three kinds -

LANGUAGES

• Compulsory English (ii) Compulsory Hindi
• SOCIAL SCIENCE/ COMMERCE/MANAGEMENT
• Compulsory Social Science/commerce/management course
• Compulsory Geography of Himachal Pradesh
• Compulsory Indian Constitution
• Compulsory Himachal Past, Present and Future
• SCIENCE (These courses are indicative in nature only; Faculty of these subjects can draw an exhaustive list and draft syllabi) -
• Compulsory Basic Science
• Climate Change and its impact on mountain sustainability
• Compulsory Environmental Science (Audit Pass Course)
• A minimum of three and a maximum of six compulsory courses are to be passed by all students enrolled for a UG degree. However,
• A student majoring /minoring in language will not do compulsory course in that language.
• A student majoring/minoring in particular social science will not do compulsory course in that particular social science.
• A student majoring/minoring in science subjects will not do compulsory course in basic science in basic science subject.

(d) SKILL BASED COURSES

(These courses are indicative in nature only, Faculty of these subjects can draw an exhaustive list and draft syllabi) -

1. (i) Functional English
2. (ii) Functional Hindi

MAJOR SUBJECT (CORE) COURSES

The student will have to clearly mention his / her choice of major subjects in order of preference out of which the admission committee will allot one major subject to him or her purely on the merit basis: There are two kinds of core courses:-

HARD CORE COURSES- which have to be done without exception. There will be no choice available. SOFT CORE COURSES, in which some degree of choice is available in the sense that he / she has to select a certain number of courses out of the given number (larger than the required) of courses.

ELECTIVE COURSES

All students enrolled for a UG degree will be required to pass a minimum of 10 and maximum of 13 elective courses. Each elective course will be of 4 credit hours. Thus a student will be able to accumulate at least 10x4=40 credits by passing Elective Courses. However, a student may take more elective courses for the purpose of 'Emphasis' or 'Major Honours’ . Elective courses are to be from a student's major / minor subject(s) as detailed above in the subject combinations allowed. In each subject being taught in the colleges affiliated to the HPU, there will be certain number of courses which will be identified by the concerned UG Board of Studies and Faculty. A student will be bound to complete the minimum required number of electives from his / her minor subjects (a minimum of 6 courses for each minor) before he /she can opt for other elective courses.

Additional Elective courses (elective courses opted for after the minimum requirements have been completed) are open to all students irrespective of whether a student is doing major in Arts, Humanities, Science, Language, Commerce.

The Department Committee of the college will decide the elective courses to offer and the size of the class when it is offered. However, it has to be ensured that any elective course is offered at least once every three years.

The student will be allowed in an elective course on a first-come-first-served basis, with the limit set in the previous rule (Rule iv).

The failed candidates in one elective course are permitted to opt for another elective course or may be permitted to continue with the same elective course when it is offered the next time. However, a candidate failing in a core / elective course shall be allowed a maximum of two more (total of three) attempts to obtain a passing grade, failing which he / she shall be considered 'dropped' from the course.

GENERAL INTEREST AND HOBBY (GI & H) COURSES

The college offers the following hobby courses with 1 to 3 credit hours each: General Interest and Hobby (GI & H) Courses: Minimum 1 and maximum 3 GI & H courses can be taken by a U.G. student over the period of the programme. However, students should be encouraged to take part in NSS, NCC, Sports and Cultural activities at the College, Inter-University and National level, including the Asian Games, International events and Olympics. Students who take parts in these activities can earn credits ranging 1-3 depending upon the level of participation.

THE FOLLOWING TABLE SHOWS THE SCHEME OFF THE COURSES AND CREDITS AGAINST DIFFERENT COURSES TABLE-I

STUDENTS COURSE WISE CONTINUOUS COMPREHENSIVE ASSESMENT (CCA) AND EVALUATION.

All courses (Compulsory, Core, Elective, and GI & H courses) involve an evaluation system of students that has the following two components:-

• Continuous Comprehensive Assessment
• End Semester examination
• CONTINUOUS COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT (CCA)- This will account for 30% of the marks for the students of 2015-16 &2016-17 batches whereas the CCA will constitute 50% marks for the students of 2014-15 batch. CCA is further divided in to three components:
• CLASSROOM ATTENDANCE – In this component, each student will have to attend a minimum of 75% Lectures / Tutorials / Practicals. A student having less than 75% attendance will not be allowed to appear in the End-Semester Examination (ESE), the marks of attendance will be varying from 1-5 depending upon lecture attended as shown below:

≥75 but < 80%    1 marks

≥80 but <85%    2marks

≥85 but <90%    3 marks

≥90 but <95 %    4 marks

≥95%    5 marks

(b)MID-TERM (MINOR) TEST – This component consists of one mid-term test which will be conducted after completion of two-third syllabus, this mid -term test will be of 15 marks 2015-16 & 2016-17 batches and 30 marks for the students of 2014-15 batch.

(c)SEMINAR / ASSIGNMENT / TERM PAPER – This component of the CCA will be of 10 marks for students of 2015-16 & 2016-17 batches and of 15 marks for the students of 2014-15 batches.

Note: Each student will have to pass the CCA component to be eligible to appear in End semester Examination.

• END-SEMESTER
• EXAMINATION(ESE)
.
• The End semester Examination for the students of 2015-16&2016-17 batch consists of 70 % marks ( Arts Subjects) where as for Science Subjects having practical it consists of 40% marks ( Theory) and 30% marks ( Practicals).
• For the students of 2014-15 batch End semester Examination consists of 50% marks. The End semester examination will be of three hours duration will be of three hours duration covering the whole syllabus of the course.
• For the Odd Semesters the ESE will be in the month of October / November and for Even Semesters it will be in the month of April / May.
• If a student is not permitted to appear in the ESE due to shortage of attendance beyond the exemption limit (< 50% attendance) shall be deemed to have ‘dropped’ the course. However such candidate, on his / her written request to be made immediately, can be permitted to redo the missed semester after completing the rest of the programme or whenever the course is offered subsequently. This redoing would mean complete course including CCA and ESE, or a student, who fulfils all the requirement for appearing in a semester examination, is unable to appear in the examination or to complete it on account of his/her own serious illness, accident, or on account of the death of near relative (mother, father, brother and sister), or on dates of state or national level examinations falls on dates of the semester exams may be allowed to appear in the semester exam in the next academic year when examination for that semester is due. Permission to sit in the examination will be permitted by college Principal/Director on the production of a valid certificate/document from the competent authority. The college will send the name of the student to the registration and migration cell for information.

GRADING

CREDIT WEIGHED MARKING SYSTEM: Performence of the students is evaluated in terms of earned credit weighed marking system. Earned credits are defined as sum of course credits in which grade points above a certain cut off have been obtained for declaring learner pass in that course. In this way two performance indices emerge.

SEMESTER GRADE POINT AVERAGE (SGPA): for the current semester which is calculated on the basis of grade points obtained in all courses, except audit courses and courses in which satisfactory or course continuation has been awarded.

SGPA= Points secured in a semester/(Credits registered in the semester excluding audit, satisfactory courses and course continuation courses)

CUMULATIVE GRADE POINT AVERAGE (CGPA): This is calculated on the basis of all pass grades obtained in all courses, except audit courses and courses in which satis factory or course continuation has been awarded, obtained in all completed semesters

CGPA=∑ (courses credits earned (Ci) x Grade Points (Gi) over all semesters/∑ ( Total course credits (Ci in all semesters except satisfactory, audit courses or course continuation credits) Or CGPA= cumulative points secured in all passed courses/( Cumulative earned credits excluding audit, satisfactory courses and course continuation courses)

CALCULATION OF GRADES FOR SGPA AND CGPA

The marks obtained in CCA and ESE will be combined and used for deciding of the course grade that student will be getting. Grading will be done by the office to less than marks Grade Point Letter Grade of COE HPU for each course class in all the colleges as is described in next section
Two system of grading will be used:

• Absolute Grading
Relative Grading

Absolute grading will be done in the case of courses in which the total number of students anywhere in HPU and its affiliated colleges is 50 or less. Example can be a course that is being offered in only or two colleges. In such cases the final scores obtained by the students will be graded in an absolute manner on the basis of persent markes obtained by the students as follows:

DETERMINING GPA, SGPA AND CGPA, DIVISION AND MERIT POSITIONS FOR MEDALS ETC: For each student the grade point average (GPA) and Cumulated Grade Point Average (CGPA) will be determined by the COE office of the HPU as follows:

GPA or CGPA = ∑CiGi/∑Ci

Where Ci is the credit earned for course i( i varying from 1 to n) and Gi is the grade point obtained by the student in course i( i varying from 1 to n), n being the numb of courses passed so far by a student.
At the completion of the UG programme the CGPA will be determined for the following three parts separately: -

• Part I- Compulsory Courses.
• Part II- General Interest and Hobby Courses.
• Part III- Core Courses and Elective Courses.

In each of these parts, the candidate will be categorized as below:

• However, for the purpose of declaring a candidate to have qualified for the degree of Bachelor of Arts/Science/ Commerce etc., in the First /Second/ Third Class or First Class with Distinction/Exemplary, the CGPA earned by the candidate in Part III alone will be considered and reported on the Certificate/ Transcript.
• Provided that all candidates should have secured the passing minimum ( i. e. at least 4.51 CGPA) in Part I and part II to qualify for the UG degree. It should be mentioned in the certificate/transcript that the candidate has passed parts I and II.
• Provided further that if a student leaves a programme without completing it ( i.e. has accumulated less than 106 credits), he/she can be , on a written application from the student, considered for the following:

Certificate: If he/she has accumulated up to 48 credits (of which 24 credits should be in the subject of the student’s chosen major), he/she can be conferred a certificate in the subject of chosen major.

Diploma: If he/she has accumulated up to 96 credits (of which 48 credits should be in the subject of the student’s chosen major), he/she can be conferred a diploma in the subject of chosen major.

Note: The CBCS regulation is subject to change as per the amendments made by HPU from time to time.