The University Grants Commission (UGC) has recently instructed its affiliated universities and colleges to introduce a compulsory six-module course on Environmental Studies at all branches of undergraduate degree.

The module, however, has been existent since 2013, and the new directive to implement it, is a part of a routine task by UGC to remind universities or colleges who either have not implemented the instruction or are not aware of the same, says a senior UGC officer, while talking to Education Times.

The decision to create a six-module course on Environmental Studies was taken by the Supreme Court in 1991 after a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by an advocate, MC Mehta. According to the court order, UGC had to prescribe a course on environment as a mandatory subject in colleges.

It took UGC over two decades to conceptualise and introduce a course on Environmental Studies. “We formed a committee of six experts comprising five professors and one UGC official to prepare a compulsory course,” says the officer.

See Source