Perception of Undergraduate Students Towards Implementation of Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) in India

The study was conducted to explore the perception of students towards CBCS and the challenges faced by them in the progress for successful implementation of CBCS. Convergent Parallel design of mix-method approach has been used. A total 80 students from Ravenshaw University and from affiliated urban degree colleges of Utkal University were selected as sample of the study. Self-developed perception scale and an open-ended questionnaire were administered. The collected data were analyzed by using percentage, t-test, ANOVA. The research revealed no significant difference in perception towards CBCS between boys and girls and between Arts, Science and Commerce students. Majority of student respondents (87.5%) have a favourable perception towards introduction of GPA instead of marks. Students highly recommended for the provision of credit transfer system, employment-based skill enhancement courses, internal exams, appointment of student advisor and flex-ibility to study at different times and different institutions to complete one course and scope to transfer credits from one institution to other. Majority of Students highly satisfied with the semester system of examination, flexibility in subject selec-tion, continuous comprehensive evaluation and skill enhancement courses. The study revealed some problem which are faced by students in the successful imple-mentation of Choice Based Credit System such as; overburden of course, workload, exam oriented, inadequate library and infrastructure, absence of specialized teach-ers and references, text books. The findings of the present study yielded the necessity of developing strategies by all the stakeholders for successful implementation of Choice Based Credit System. Parida Santosh Kumar1,a, Scientific adviser Mishra Sudarshan 2,b, 1Regional Institute of Education, Bhopal, India. 2Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, India. a ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1974-2798, e-mail: mrsantosh.jpf@gmail.com b ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7198-8955, e-mail: sudarshanmishra@yahoo.com Резюме: Исследование было проведено с целью изучения отношения студентов к CBCS и проблем, с которыми они сталкиваются в процессе успешного внедрения CBCS. Была использована конвергентная параллельная структура смешанных методов. В качестве выборки для исследования были отобраны в общей сложности 80 студентов из Университета Рейвеншоу и из аффилированных городских колледжей Университета Уткал. Была введена самостоятельно разработанная шкала восприятия и открытый опросник. Собранные данные были проанализированы с использованием процентного соотношения, t-test, ANOVA. Исследование не выявило существенных различий в восприятии CBCS между юношами и девушками, а также между студентами, изучаю-щими искусство, науку и коммерцию. Большинство респондентов-студентов (87,5%) положительно относятся к введению среднего балла вместо оценок. Студентам настоятельно рекомендуется предоставить систему перевода кредитов, курсы повышения квалификации на основе трудоустройства, внутренние экзамены, назначение консультанта для студентов и вариативность обучения в разное время и в разных учреждениях для завершения одного курса и возможности перевода кредитов из одного учреждения в другое. Большинство студентов высоко удовлетворены семестровой системой экзаменов, вариативностью в выборе предметов, непрерывной комплексной оценкой и курсами повышения квалификации. Исследование выявило некоторые проблемы, с которыми сталкиваются студенты при успешном внедрении кредитной системы, основанной на выборе, такие как: перегруженность учебного курса, рабочая нагрузка, ориентированность на экзамен, библиотека и инфраструктура, несоответствующая требованиям, отсутствие специализированных преподавателей и справочных материалов, учебников. Результаты исследования показали необходимость разработки стратегий всеми заинтересованными сторонами для успешного внедрения системы зачетных единиц на основе выбора.


Introduction
India's higher education system is the world's third largest in terms of students, next to China and the United States. In future, India will be one of the largest education hubs, still 73rd year of independence our education system has not been developed fully. We are not able to list a single university in top 100 universities of the world. UGC is continuously working and focusing on quality in higher education sector. The higher education sector of India needs competitive academic environment where, quality is the immediate need of the hour. To ensure quality in the higher education system, The National Knowledge Commission in its report to the nation in 2008-2009 on higher education and Yashpal Committee Report in 2009 recommended renovation of higher education through academic and administrative reforms. Keeping in view the challenges of the changed times and to make the higher education in Indian Universities compatible with the universities in developed nations, the UGC 11th plan and later on the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) stressed on the following recommendations: 1. Semester System. 2. Choice Based Credit System 3. Curriculum Development. 4. Examination Reforms. 5. Administrative Reforms.
In a bid to revamp higher education and bring all the Universities and Colleges under a single Umbrella of grading, learning and standards in the country, the University Grants Commission (UGC) in 2014 came up with a scheme called Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) with the directive that all Universities and other higher education institutions follow this program from 2015 onwards. The main intent behind the CBCS is to have the flexibility of choosing a course by students, as observed in many European and a choice to choose from the prescribed courses, which are referred as core, elective or minor or soft skill courses and they can learn at their own pace and the entire assessment is graded based on a credit system. Sumitha, Krishnamurthi and Winfred [7] found that CBCS is essential for Higher Education as this system increases the sincerity among the students as they prefer to learn the subjects of their interest. Chahal and Manan [2] revealed that good number of students feel CBCS has enabled academic justice when looking through the glass of evaluation toward our educational system and increase the motivation level of students about their achievement and consequently a way for progress of academic standards. Science Students are having positive attitude towards CBCS in comparison to Arts Students and in the same way boys are having the positive attitude in comparison to the Girls Students [3; 5]. Biswal [1] reported that teachers are aware about CBCS but the students' awareness level about CBCS is below average. It was also found that CBCS is partly implemented in rural colleges under Utkal University where semester system has been adopted by the colleges but the system of grade, credit and credit transfer dimension was still not implemented. Swami [8] found that around 61% of the total samples were in favour of the credit based semester system. 55% of the total sample felt the extent of coverage of the course was very good. 54% of the students felt the extent of effort required is more in the Credit Based Semester System. Singh [6] conducted a research to study the perception of Student Teacher's towards CBCS for Quality Sustenance. The result of the research displayed that the student teachers are satisfied with the CBCS pattern. Their responses were positive with respect of changes in curriculum guidelines, grading pattern, internal marking system, and examination pattern and also reported that CBCS provides interdisciplinary approach as well as value based courses which make students total development and enable students to have a flexible learning, to have wider choices outside their discipline of their study.
Mir [4] found that the system surfaced many loopholes instead of merits such as absence of trail version, lack of preparation in terms of infrastructure, poor awareness among faculty as well as students, mismatch between the prescribed guidelines and existing practice etc. Majority of the students don't have information about «what of CBCS» as majority of students can hardly understand the basic nature of «CBCS', differentiate the open electives and core pa-pers and lack knowledge about UGC guidelines regarding CBCS. Another area of weakness in the existing CBCS is that faculty of the departments is perhaps passive in mobilizing the students owing to know workshops and awareness camps by the university.
During the implementation of CBCS in higher education institutions, there are many challenges which require attention and discussion in order to put it on the right track. It is essential to find out the perception of students towards different aspects of Choice Based Credit System by considering the UGC guidelines. In the same time it is the right time to examine the Issues and Challenges pertaining to the implementation of the choice based credit system in higher education. Therefore, in this study the researcher made an attempt to highlight the perceptions of students towards CBCS and the existing challenges concerning to the successful implementation of CBCS.

Objectives of the study
The study aims at finding out the implementation status and perception of students towards implementation of CBCS at undergraduate colleges in Odisha. Therefore, the following objectives have been taken into consideration.
1. To study the perception of students towards implementation of Choice Based Credit System.
2. To study the problems faced by students in implementing Choice Based Credit System.

Hypothesis of the Study
Ho1: There is no significant difference in perception towards CBCS between boys and girls UG students.
Ho2: There is no significant difference in perception towards CBCS between Arts, Science and Commerce UG students.

Methodology
To conduct the above study the researcher used Convergent Parallel Design of mixed method strategy where the data was collected simultaneously by using quantitative and qualitative techniques. The researcher selected Ravenshaw University and Utkal University affiliated urban degree colleges (BJB Autonomous, Rajadhani College and Maharishi College of Natural law) as accessible population by using purposive sampling technique. The sample size is 80 out of which 40 students from Ravenshaw University and 40 students from affiliated colleges of Utkal University were selected. Keeping these things in view the researcher used self-developed perception scale and open-ended questionnaire to know the perception of students towards CBCS in relation to UGC guidelines. The Quantitative data that were collected from the key informants (students) through perception scale were analysed by using quantitative techniques (i.e. percentage analysis, t-test & ANOVA) The Qualitative data that were collected from the key informants (students) through questionnaire were analysed by using qualitative techniques.

Result and Discussion
Perception of students towards implementation of CBCS across gender Table 1 indicates that the value of p' (0.06) is greaterthan 0.05 and hence, not significant at 0.05 level. So, the null hypothesis, «there is no significant difference in perception towards CBCS between boys and girls UG students» is retained. Result leads to infer that the perception of boys and girls towards CBCS is not differing significantly.   Table 3 Perception of students towards relationship between Education, Employment and Skill

Note: Strongly Agreed(SA), Agreed(A), Undecided(UD), Disagreed(DA), Strongly Disagreed(SD), N=80
Perception of students towards implementation of CBCS across stream Table 2 revealed that the value of p' (0.63) is greater than 0.05 and hence, not significant at 0.05 level. Hence, the null hypothesis «there is no significant difference in perception towards CBCS among Arts, Science and Commerce UG students» is retained. Result leads to infer that the perception of Arts, Science and Commerce students towards CBCS is not differing significantly.

Perception of Students towards Choice Based Credit System
In order to study the perception of students towards CBCS, the investigator analysed and interpreted the data on the basis of six dimensions of CBCS, such as relationship between education, employment and skill, flexibility of students to choose subjects of their choice, flexibility of students for mobility to different institutions, shifting from teacher centric to learner centric curriculum, semester based continuous and comprehensive evaluation. The analysis of data is presented in Table 3. Table 3 indicates that most of the student respondents have a favourable perception on CBCS with reference to the dimension relationship between education, employment and skills.It is observed that 85% students opined for the provision of skill enhancement courses under CBCS curriculum and 76.25% agreed that Skill enhancement courses strengthen their work efficiency. On the other hand, some of student respondents (35%) were not agreed on the statement that CBCS curriculum provides scope for vocational training.
From the table 4, it is concluded that most of the student respondents have a favourable perception on CBCS with reference to the dimension flexibility of students to choose subjects of their choice. It is revealed that majority of students (88.5%) favoured that CBCS based curriculum provides variety of elective courses which helps them to choose subjects of their interest and 78.75% students opined for a student advisor to guide them during the selection of appropriate subject. Table 5 indicates that most of the student respondents have a favourable perception on CBCS with reference to the dimension flexibility of student mobility to different institutions. Majority of the students have a positive attitude towards the mobility and credit transfer system. It can be stated that CBCS should provide flexibility for student mobility to other institutions.
From the table 6, it can be concluded that most of the student respondents have a favourable perception on CBCS with reference to the dimension shifting from teacher centric to learner centric curriculum. Most of the learners viewed that CBCS based curriculum is designed according to their need and interest. According to the respondents' perception present CBCS based curriculum shifts teacher centric traditional classroom to a learner and learning centric classroom.     Table 7 indicates that majority of students have a favourable perception towards semester based continuous and comprehensive evaluation system. 85% respondents agreed that internal assessment system is a good step for them on the other way 38.75% respondents agreed that there should not be any external assessment. It is observed that 83.95% students opined that Semester system in the place of annual system is more suitable for them.
Problems faced by students in implementing Choice Based Credit System Table 8 indicates the problems and issues particularly in the field of learner and learning process under CBCS system. It is observed that majority of students (71.25%) opined that the work load of students has been increased after CBCS implementation and 66.25% students viewed that the number of courses imposed in CBCS curriculum is an overburden for them. Table 9 highlights the problems concerning to teacher and teaching pedagogy in relation to CBCS. It is revealed that majority of students (67.5%) agreed upon the statement that teachers are not prepared enough to follow CBCS based curriculum as well as on the absence of adequate and specialised teachers (67%) according to the CBCS pattern. Table 10 indicates the challenges in curriculum and evaluation concerning to CBCS. It is observed that 70% of respondents opined that CBCS has increased the problems in choosing subjects. Here, it is also noticed by the researcher that most of the students (81.25%) viewed that present CBCS based curriculum is more examination oriented. Table 6 Perception of students towards moving from teacher centric to learner centric curriculum  Table 7 Perception of students towards semester based continuous and comprehensive evaluation   Table 9 Perception of students towards the problems with reference Teacher and teaching pedagogy   Fig. 1 indicates that most of the students (81.25%) opined present CBCS based curriculum is more examination oriented. Among them 30% students were strongly agreed and 51.25% students agreed upon the above said statement Table 11 highlights the problems faced by the students in relation to infrastructure. It is revealed that majority of student respondents (76.25%) opined that CBCS is complicated, especially in the view of shortage of infrastructure and teachers and reference books and library facility is not adequate as per the requirements of students.. Fig 2 highlights students' perception towards availability of infrastructure and teacher. Here, most of the students (76.25%) stated CBCS is complicated in terms of shortage of infrastructure and teachers. Among them majority of students (48.75%) were strongly agreed upon the above said statement.

Note: Strongly Agreed(SA), Agreed(A), Undecided(UD), Disagreed(DA), Strongly Disagreed(SD), N=80
Students' perception towards overburden of courses From the table 12, it is found that majority of students (75%) were agreed upon the statement «number of courses imposed in CBCS is an overburden for them'. There are several problems pointed by student respondents with concerning to overburden of courses. Curriculum structure is not conducive. There is vast content which is an overburden for students. It is difficult to complete the syllabus due to vast content. Looking to the present CBCS curriculum, it can be said that it is more theory oriented and content dominated. Thus, according to respondents, CBCS curriculum is an overburden for then due to shortage of time, vast content and theory oriented.
Students' perception towards flexibility in subject selection Table 13 highlights the students' perception on subject selection. Here, majority of student respondents (75%) opined that CBCS provides flexibility to choose subjects as per the need and interest of students. According to student respondents, there are number of subjects have been provided which gives large opportunities to choose the subjects as per the interest of the learner. CBCS based curriculum provides enough liberty in choosing elective courses as per the interest of the students. On the other hand, some respondents opined that flexibility is very limited for them. Flexibility is given only for elective courses, whereas SEC and AEC are compulsory. It limits the choice. Some doesn't get their desired subject as per the needs and interest.
Students' perception about skill enhancement courses Table 14 indicates that most of the students respondents (78.75%) favoured that present CBCS based curriculum develops their working efficiency through different skill enhancement courses. CBCS introduced communicative English, EVS and basic computer for the entire stream like, science, arts and commerce to develop their skills in different manner. In the same run CBCS features projects, debate, seminar, group discussion which help a student for increasing his/her skills. Whereas some student respondents viewed that Skill enhancement course is only in pen and paper and more theory oriented. According to respondent's skill enhancement courses needs to link with working efficiency and employability.
Students' perception about examination oriented curriculum From the table 15, it is found that majority of student respondents (78.75%) agreed upon the statement, present CBCS based curriculum is more examination oriented. According to student respondents the duration is very short and in between them several forms of internal, projects, seminars and semester exams gives pressure and stress.    (Table 11. Dimension-4, statement-1, SA-Strongly Agree, Agree, UD-Undecided, DA-Disagree, SD-Strongly Disagree) Table 12 Courses imposed in CBCS curriculum is an overburden     2. Students were highly agreed to the dimension flexibility to choose subjects of their choice. Majority of students favoured that CBCS based curriculum provides variety of elective courses which helps them to choose subjects of their interest. The CBCS-based curriculum should be tailored to meet the needs and interests of students by allowing them to select their own subjects. Each UG college must appoint a student advisor or counsellor to assist students in subject selection. Choosing elective from a wide range of courses is a challenge for them. They recommended for a student advisor in each department.
3. Students highly satisfied with semester based continuous and comprehensive evaluation system. They agreed that internal assessment system is a good step for them. Semester system of examination should be encouraged for overall implementation. Internal as well as continuous and comprehensive examination should be prioritized rather than external examination.
4. Students are very much disturbed upon lengthy courses and opined on their work load which has been increased after CBCS implementation and viewed that the number of courses imposed in CBCS curriculum is an overburden for them. Under graduate colleges as well as the curriculum planner should look into the matter while designing curriculum. CBCS based curriculum must be according to the needs and interest of students without any overburden.
5. Students are highly agreed that teachers are not prepared enough to follow CBCS-based curriculum as well as on the absence of adequate and specialised teachers according to the CBCS pattern. The preservice and Inservice teachers are needed to be well trained according to the CBCS based curriculum. The teachers should be equipped with the changing demand and pattern of CBCS.
6. Majority of students were agreed that CBCS has increased the problems in choosing subjects and viewed that present CBCS based curriculum is more examination oriented. There is a need of student advisor for guidance and counselling of students. As per the UGC guidelines CBCS curriculum must be learner centred not examination oriented. Undergraduate colleges must have the purpose to prepare students for life rather than exams. It requires to design without any ambiguity and falsification.
7. Students were highly agreed that the core subject teaching is affected by implementation of CBCS and which interrupt students from getting a good hold on his/her core subjects.
8. It is revealed that majority of student respondents opined that CBCS is complicated, especially in view of shortage of infrastructure and teachers and reference books and library facility is not adequate as per the requirements of students. The infrastructure of under graduate colleges should be adequate and according to the requirement of students and teachers. Considering to the CBCS pattern, ample Teaching learning materials, library resources must be made available to students.

Conclusion
In a bid to revamp higher education and bring all the Universities and Colleges under a single Umbrella of grading, learning and standards in the country, the University Grants Commission (UGC) implemented Choice Based Credit System from 2015 onwards. After 5 years of implementation it is the need of time to review and modify the programme according to the requirement of students, teachers and institutions. The study indicated that, students were highly satisfied on the areas such as flexibility in subject selection, credit transfer system, semester system, internal exams and skill enhancement courses. On the other hand, students were also disturbed in specific areas such as overburden of courses, examination, unavailability of recourses and untrained teachers. We can definitely overcome the challenges and the problems faced in the CBCS by adopting new strategies keeping in mind the global trends and needs of present generation.