Most people confuse credit based system with a different evaluation system in higher education. The credit based system is rather a scientifically accepted system which allows different weightage to different courses in a program based on its utility in the overall program structure. It is mostly followed in the west because over a period of time it has been identified that every program must have some learning objective defined to it. It is also generally accepted that only a flexible credit based structure can provide the best training and learning where the student can learn at his own pace and can learn what he perceives that would help him in his professional career.
 | How is this credit based system different from other universities? Credit based system is a flexible system, where student has flexibility to choose the courses he wants to study. Other systems are rigid system where all students in a program study the same courses. In this system, students within a program can study different courses as per their interest and career goals. |
For example:
A credit based system will ensure that at the end of the program, the computer engineer would be competent to design a system or would be able to write a program even for the most complex real life situation or would be able to design the architecture of a network in a large company etc. What is required is to devise ways and means through which the student who aspires to design a system has studied various hardware courses which make him competent to design, a student interested in coding has studied in depth various programming languages which give him mastery over coding, or else a student desirous of networking as his domain expertise must have studied different protocols and levels of security which make him an expert in network architecture!
The credit based system allows the University to decide what it desires in a good engineer. Not only he should have domain knowledge but he must be aware of the market situation, the competitive global environment, the complex economics considerations under which the Industry operates, the social, environmental constraints and the person must have good technical skills to negotiate, work in a team, a good communicator and must be considerate to cross-cultural teams. For doing so, the credit based system is devised with a minimum of each component embedded in the system. A typical engineering program will have various components as shown below.
The Advantages - Bright student can always go for the maximum credits
- Students focusing on research and other activities can take less credit
- Students can take a break for a year or two then come back and join the university
- Students get the freedom to choose and identify
- Students can translate their innate capabilities to credits and scores
- Students get the know-how of more than one discipline increasing their horizons