UGC DEB Portal: Colleges are selling online courses arbitrarily, UGC has taken a big decision to curb this!

UGC has come to notice that some higher education institutes are enrolling students in unrecognized open and distance learning and online courses and such online degrees do not benefit the students. UGC Chairman Prof. M. Jagadeesh Kumar says that some institutes were enrolling students in unrecognized online courses, which is a big risk for the future of the students. Just like a standard procedure is adopted in regular courses, similarly an important change has been made for the admission process of online courses as well.

Prof. Kumar says that students who want to take admission in online courses will first have to register on the UGC-DEB (Distance Education Bureau) portal. After registration, the student’s DEB-ID will be prepared. Unique DEB ID can be created from Academic Bank of Credit (ABC-ID).

This process will be implemented from the academic session 2024-25 and every student getting admission in the new session starting from October will have to create this unique ID. Prof. Kumar said that with this UGC will have information about the students studying online courses in every institute. UGC has made regulations for open and distance learning programs and online courses, which are necessary for every institute to follow. Even after this, some universities are playing with the future of the students.

In such a situation, UGC has taken this decision to promote transparency in the admission process of online courses. In this session, students will get more options of online courses in universities and colleges. Online course options will be available in top educational institutions like IIT, IIM along with the largest open online courses platform. It has already been clarified by UGC that whether it is an offline course or an online course, students will get equal credits in both types of courses.

UGC has made a provision that universities and colleges will have to include online courses in the new credit framework. Students who have not received formal education from school or educational institution can be included in the mainstream. Unique ID can be created from https://deb.ugc.ac.in/studentDebId.