India, April 7 -- Offering Honours or Honours with Research courses in the fourth year undergraduate programme now comes with a rider - only colleges that also have post-graduate (PG) courses or a PhD research centre in the same subject will receive automatic approval for the Honours programme.

The rider has been included in guidelines issued by the state higher and technical education department on Monday. Approval will also be contingent on infrastructure, qualified faculty, research facilities, the institution's NAAC grade and overall academic capacity.

These eligibility rules are part of the broader guidelines issued for the fourth year under the National Education Policy (NEP), which will start from the academic year 2026-27.

The ...