HRD ministry to introduce three new professional programmes

The Union Human Resource Development Ministry will launch three new professional programmes imparting over 1,000 hours of industry-linked training for students from this academic year onwards. The move is aimed at enhancing the employability of graduates.

Prakash Javadekar, HRD Minister, stated, "We are starting BA (Professional), BSc (Professional) and B Com (Professional) courses from this year where over a 1,000 hours of additional course work will be added during the three years."

The contents of the courses will be 250 hours of soft-skill sessions, sessions on personality development and communication skills; 250 hours of digital information and communication technology; and another 500 hours of skill development courses of students’ choice. 

These new programmes are also introduced to reduce curriculum overload.

"Today curriculum overload is so much that there is little time left for life-skill education, physical education and experiential learning. The NCERT team has done some work in this regard. They have gone into each chapter and assessed what is required and what is not. And I think, 10 to 15 per cent of the overload would be reduced. It is a scientific exercise, so there shouldn't be any controversy. The purpose of education is to build a good human being out of the system," Javadekar added.