UGC has issued a curriculum for life skills for undergraduates. The National Education Policy of 2020 (NEP 2020), while focusing on a more holistic and multidisciplinary education system recommended the flexible and innovative credit-based curricula and projects of all HEIs in the following areas:
- Community engagement and service: Citizenship values, lessons in seva/service, participation in community service programmes and life skills.
- Value-based education: Value-based education to include the development of humanistic, ethical, constitutional, and universal human values of truth (satya), righteous conduct (dharma), peace (shanti), love (prem), non-violence (ahimsa), and scientific temper.
The faculties of UGC institutions are given following directions:
- The four Life Skills(Jeevan Kaushal) courses are designed to ensure that our graduate learners
are equipped to handle their personal, interpersonal, and professional lives holistically,
irrespective of discipline. - These courses shall be deemed equivalent to ‘foundational courses’ and shall be offered across disciplines.
- To ensure that every single learner is equipped with basic competency in the life skills included here.
- Learners are required to comply with the credit requirements of each course whether taken as independent 2-credit courses in individual semesters or in groups of two. Credit loads for these courses shall not exceed 4 in a single semester (i.e., two courses at a time).
- These courses shall be taught by faculty members with the right credentials to teach the subject. HEIs will make necessary arrangements to identify and hire faculty members who have the requisite qualification and aptitude to impart the skills and would have been allowed to teach a course of similar nature elsewhere.
- The courses can be taught online and in-person, ensuring that the learners get the right opportunity and ambience to acquire the skills.
