Phasing out Two Years Degree Programs BA BSc and MA MSc Higher Education Commission Pakistan
It has been observed that most of the universities are using abbreviations BS and BSc (Hons) involving 16 years schooling and BA/BSc involving 14 years schooling respectively. Similarly, abbreviations MS/M.Phil and MSc (Hons) are adopted to denote 18 years masters. The main disadvantage of using different titles for bachelor level degrees is creating confusion for employers, national, international organizations and community as well.For streamlining, HEC constituted a committee comprising an experts from different universities/institutions to work on the possibility of phasing out BA/BSc programs and to devise a mechanism to accomodate existing BA/BSc graduate into BS four years program. The committee analyzed BA/BSc programs at different universities. It proposed a bridging semester as foundation to cover the academic deficiency of a student who would be entering into the 5th semester of the BS program. Moreover there shall be no admissions in conventional BA/BSc after academic year 2018 & in MA/MSc after academic year 2020.
The matter was taken up in the 31st meeting of the commission and was approved as a policy, therefore needs to be communicated to all the universities/DAIs of Pakistan for implementation within all HEIs in letter and spirit.
In this regard, all the universities/DAIs are advised to comply with the commission's endorsement to the recommendations of the committee, constituted for the purpose of phasing out BA/BSc and bridging the existing BA/BSc graduates.
