India’s attempt to create a digitised credential system has raised quality control concerns and may entrench institutional hierarchies, experts warned, as the deadline looms for the country’s universities to migrate their student data.
Establishing a nationwide Academic Bank of Credit (ABC) is a key plank of India’s 2020 National Education Policy (NEP) aimed at promoting interdisciplinary study by allowing students more flexibility to switch between courses and subjects, as well as institutions. In addition, the bank is intended to support India’s pivot to increased participation in skills education.
“In order to achieve this, the government needed to allow the students to choose from a wide variety of courses [and] the basket of courses had to be expanded,” said Saumen Chattopadhyay, a professor at the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
“This huge administrative burden has to be alleviated through digitisation of the transfer mechanism.”
Earlier this year, India’s University Grants Commission (UGC) set a deadline of the end of 2024 for higher education institutions to upload existing credit data to the online repository.
The deadline followed a warning from the UGC that institutions were not uploading assessment results to the system “in a timely manner”, which, it said, defeated “the very purpose for which ABC was envisaged”.
However, there are concerns about quality control under the new system, as well as questions about how this will change students’ approaches to learning.
Eldho Mathews, a higher education researcher and programme officer at the Kerala State Higher Education Council, said there were “apprehensions about maintaining academic standards when transferring credits from different types of institutions”, warning that there was a “lack of standardised credit frameworks across institutions in the country”.
Vimal Verma, a PhD student at JNU who is researching the ABC, said: “Many institutions are concerned that a system allowing students to freely choose courses outside their institutions could dilute the learning process, shifting the focus toward credential generation rather than fostering deep learning.”
Despite these concerns, more than 2,000 institutions have signed up, which, Mr Mathews said, “is not a small achievement in the Indian context”.
However, given the size of India’s higher education system, it is unlikely that every institution will meet the deadline, according to Mr Verma.
“While the deadline is expected to accelerate the adoption of the ABC system among Indian higher education institutions, it is highly probable that the deadline will be extended into the next year,” he said.
One of the biggest hurdles to the nationwide roll-out of the new system is resistance among state governments to the NEP.
In Karnataka, for example, the government has refused to participate in the ABC programme, instead creating its own system via DigiLocker. Recent reports suggest this is creating problems for international students, who may struggle to access their transcripts once they leave the country.
Mr Verma said that creating an “internationally recognised” credentials system was also a challenge at national level.
However, despite state governments rejecting NEP, some institutions in the dissident states are still signing up to the ABC.
“For institutions, successful implementation could lead to significant changes,” said Mr Verma. “It is likely to create a hierarchy within the higher education system, where top-tier institutions benefit from the increased freedom of student choice, while others may need to reconsider their strategies for survival in this new landscape.”
