It is going to be a nail-biting last few months for the first batch students of the Master of Public Policy (MPP) course of the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru. With just a few months left for the 42 students to graduate, NLSIU has had to change the name of the course to MA in Public Policy. The reason: the University Grants Commission (UGC) recognises only select nomenclatures for courses.
The UGC diktat came at the time of approving the course though admissions were made by then. The law school is preparing to accept its third batch soon.
Though NLSIU has renamed the course, the university administration is hopeful of convincing the UGC to allow them to retain the original name, more so before the first batch graduates.
“The course was initiated due to the serious dearth of public policy in the country. The vice-chancellor constituted an expert committee and, after several rounds of consultation, a report was prepared which went through the academic council, faculty board and the executive council for approval. We wanted to use MPP because it is widely used in the US and our programme is nothing less than that being offered by international universities,” said S. Japhet, chairman, postgraduate council and academic coordinator for the MPP.
While university officials said students have been kept in the loop, they did admit to some discontent among those who perceive an MA to sound less like a professional course.
“The UGC has asked us to submit the appropriate documents. Until then, we will use the existing nomenclature. We are still interested in getting it approved by the UGC and are preparing a comprehensive report,” he added.