PUNE: For the first time, an international university will open a cell ‘International Academy’, for blended, learning and teaching in Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU). Interestingly, it also for the first time for the University of Melbourne (UoM) to start such kind of cell in India.
Vice-Chancellor Nitin Karmalkar stated that it was likely to be established in a month.
The academy will initially begin courses in science faculty and will later expand it in Humanities and Social Sciences as well, said vice-chancellor of the UoM Duncan Maskell, on his visit to SPPU on Tuesday. He also officially announced the collaboration between both universities to offer the blended BSc course in SPPU from this year. The syllabus for this course has been formulated jointly by UoM and SPPU along with Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER).
“The senior staff from the UoM and staff from SPPU will soon meet in Pune to discuss potential opportunities to establish similar blended programmes in Arts and Social Science faculties too,” said Maskell.
The newly designed course will have computation in the second semester. It has been framed keeping in mind the need for computational skills in all areas of science including fundamental science research, said mentor for BSc Blended course in Prof Madhav Rao of IISER.
The first two semesters for all the students who enrol in it will be the same where all students will learn about Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics. This will be followed by specialisation where the student will choose a subject among the four to have focused learning.
According to the academic pattern of UoM, it was mandatory for science students to take up 25 per cent of the credits from Arts and Humanities subjects. This pattern was likely to be implemented in the courses offered here, stated Assistant Vice-Chancellor (international), UoM Ashok Kumar Muthupandian.
The certificates for the course will be awarded by SPPU. These students will be eligible to apply for the relevant post-graduate program in UoM.
Two students of Modern College of Arts Science and Commerce which was started as a pilot BSc blended course in 2016 at the college, have enrolled for the post-graduate program at UoM.
Rucha Patil has already started her Master’s course in UoM, Soumitra Bhide who has topped the Joint Admission Test for MSc (JAM) in Biological Sciences category will join the university next year, said officials from SPPU.
Maskell was present to felicitate the first batch of Blended BSc in Bioscience students who graduated this year.
