The Lucknow University (LU) was the first in the country to introduce curriculum prescribed in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, but about half a dozen associated colleges have expressed their inability to implement the same due to lack of required infrastructure for vocational and co-curricular courses.
These affiliated colleges do not have enough teachers for multi-disciplinary teaching. Principal of Kalicharan Postgraduate College, Chandra Mohan Upadhyay, said, "We do not have economics teachers and neither is NCC available at our college. We need more trained teachers for vocational courses."
He added, "As of now, we have decided to introduce cinematography as a vocational course, but due to limited equipment and budget, it is very challenging for us."
Some like the Principal of Lucknow Christian College, Pronoti Singh, believe that the policy is a little unclear and ambiguous. "There is a lot of ambiguity in the terms of major and minor subjects. At the moment, we are focusing on increasing the strength of teachers for both co-curricular and vocational courses," she said.
The principals said that though the NEP 2020 prescribes that a student can opt subjects of other streams/faculties, the varsity has not given permission for it. For example, under NEP 2020 a student of arts can opt for a subject of science or commerce and vice versa. However, LU guidelines say that a student will have to opt for subjects within the same stream in which she/he has enrolled.
Rajiv Kumar, principal of DAV College, said that many students want to choose subjects from other faculties, but since LU has not given permission, the college is not providing such an option.