In response to increased demand from students, Karnataka has extended the Apprenticeship-Embedded Degree Programmes (AEDP) in BCom courses to 85 government first-grade colleges across the State for the 2025-26 academic year.
In addition, the paid apprenticeship, which was limited to the 6th semester earlier for AEDP programmes, has been extended to the fifth semester as well.
To provide job opportunities to students, the Higher Education Department had launched four new AEDPs in 45 government first grade colleges in 21 districts in the 2024-25 academic year.
The four new degree programmes are BCom in retail, logistics, e-commerce, banking, finance, service, and insurance.
How it works
Under this programme, students will pursue a regular college education in the first and second year and undergo apprenticeship training with companies in their final year. The students will get a stipend from 鈧8,000 to 鈧18,000 depending upon capability.
The curriculum is provided by the Centre for Research in Schemes and Policies (CRISP) and approved by the board of studies of universities.
鈥淭his time, there was a high demand from students for AEDP courses, and colleges were demanding enhancement of these courses. In this context, orders have been issued to start these courses in 85 colleges this year after discussing with the government. Around 50,000 students will benefit,鈥 said Manjushree N., commissioner, Collegiate Education and Technical Education Department.
Demand for Arts courses
This time, there is a huge demand for degree courses in government first-grade colleges, and a total of 26,923 seats have been enhanced by the College Education Department. Out of this, there was a higher demand for Arts courses, and a total of 13,905 seats have been increased, officials said.
As many as 4,856 seats were enhanced for BSc degree and 4,130 seats for B.Com, 516 for BBA, 2,841 for BCA, 495 for BSW and 180 for other courses.
The increase in seats for BBA and BCA courses has been allowed subject to approval from All India Council For Technical Education (AICTE). It has been suggested that teaching of BCA courses should be done on shift basis in colleges where there is a shortage of computers.