Mangaluru : Former Member of Karnataka Legislative Council Arun Shahapur on Friday, May 10, urged the Karnataka government to immediately withdraw the circular introducing the three-year undergraduate course instead of the four-year course.

Speaking to reporters here under the aegis of Peoples’ Forum for Karnataka Education, Mr. Shahapur said the government should hold extensive discussions on the introduction of the State Education Policy (SEP) in the place of the National Education Policy (NEP).

The government was in a hurry to implement the SEP without any discussions with the stakeholders, including the universities, academicians, the Higher Education Council etc., Mr. Shahapur said. Without disclosing the contents of the interim report by the former UGC Chairman Sukhdev Thorat Committee, the government, in a knee-jerk move, was reintroducing the three-year undergraduate course, Mr. Shahapur regretted.

While the entire country has embraced the NEP, including the Opposition-ruled states of Kerala and West Bengal, Karnataka was the only state to follow a different path and set up thereby seriously jeopardising the future of the student community, Mr. Shahapur regretted.

While Kerala and West Bengal were in line with the policy being followed across the country for the welfare of students, Karnataka has taken a regressive step to reintroduce the SEP of 2007. This was just because the NEP in Karnataka was introduced by the previous BJP government, he alleged.

Mr. Shahapur said universities and institutions of higher education would have to conduct three separate sets of examinations if SEP was reintroduced. They have to conduct examinations for students already enrolled under the NEP, conduct examinations for the newly-enrolled SEP students and also higher education examinations for NEP students, he said. He wondered how the universities already struggling to hold exams and announce results with several shortcomings, could cope up with the new system.

The former MLC said students had multiple options to continue or quit a course under the NEP with certificates at each level that would have boosted their employment potential. Without evaluating the merits of the NEP, the Karnataka government took a political decision thereby affecting the student community.

People’s Forum Convener Rajashekhar Hebbar and Secretary K. Ramesh were present.