Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) – An Innovative Concept in Indian Higher Education

India can talk of many success stories on economic restructuring, ever after the economic crisis of 1991 forcing the government to initiate major reforms and erasing out bottlenecks which were long prevailing in our economy. There has been no looking back ever since and have marched ahead to be the front runners among top economies of the world. However, there are certain grey areas as well which can pose huge challenge and can slow down the growth story of our country in not catered timely and firmly. One of such area of concern is the prevailing education system, and in spite of being one of the youngest nations where 65 percent of the population is below the age of 35, the country still struggles in terms of skill development and employability of youths. India has been relying heavily on the structured form of educational system where students were provided with the prescribed program structure for the particular stream the student wants to undergo. They were provided no freedom in terms of picking courses of their choice and interest. With this back ground in 2015-16, the University Grant Commission (UGC) moved on from traditional marks and percentage system and introduced Choice Based Credit System at higher education levels considering of graduate and post graduate colleges and universities. The purpose of CBCS has been to give students the freedom and liberty to choose their own basket of courses based on their capabilities and interest area. Under this system the students undergo courses which are essential for particular stream and can also pick courses of their interest from other streams/areas as open or domain electives. Apart from it the students are required to undergo some soft skill courses such as communication skill courses, behavioral science courses and foreign language courses. Thus CBCS system of education is based on the philosophy of all round development of students with freedom of choice, thereby increasing their personality, knowledgebase and promotion of skills as per their interest area which was not possible under traditional system of education. The paper tries to understand the concept and functioning of CBCS system and also underlines the challenges that come across in proper implementation of this new system. The paper also comes up with important suggestions which can help in improving the utility of CBCS and help in achieving the desired results in terms of making our youth smarter, committed, skillful and employable. Information has been gathered from one of the leading private university, other secondary sources like UGC website, research papers, journals, and newspapers.