AICTE prohibits pvt engg colleges from offering science courses
Sparking strong opposition from private institutions, a recent decision by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has forbidden engineering colleges from offering three-year and five-year science degree programmes.
The matter came to light after the Delhi High Court received a petition filed by the Shabad Welfare Society of Allahabad and directed the AICTE to investigate allegations that engineering colleges were offering unapproved science degree courses. Following this, the AICTE wrote to engineering colleges in the country to stop offering science courses.
An AICTE official said, “As per the AICTE norms, an engineering college can only offer BE, B.Tech, B.Arch, B.Plan and ME, M.Tech, M.Arch or M.Plan courses. They cannot run B.Sc and M.Sc degree programmes in the name of an engineering college and using the campus of a technical institution. If they want they can start a separate college and run these courses, without using the facilities of an engineering college," reported a national daily.
While private engineering institutes disagree with the decision taken by AICTE, the Tamil Nadu Government is keen on allowing aided engineering colleges to reintroduce popular B.Sc degree course that were earlier offered under the non-self-financing mode.
As many as 43 engineering colleges across Tamil Nadu offer the following courses:
- BSc Apparel & Fashion Technology
- BSc Applied Sciences
- BSc Computer Technology
- BSc Information Technology
- MSc Applied Mathematics
- MSc Computer Technology
- MSc Material Science courses
In fact, some institutions had also offered five-year integrated science courses like MSc Theoretical Computer Science and MSc Software Engineering. Backing this up, the college professors also highlighted that the integrated courses are very much in demand by students who want a mix of science and engineering.
Vouching for these courses, one of the professors of private engineering colleges said “These courses have a unique combination of mathematics, physics, chemistry and engineering and nearly 25 percent of the content is from engineering subjects. Some of these courses were started way back in 1970s and 80s and even before the AICTE came into existence," as reported by a national daily.
Here's a list of reasons ‘for’ and ‘against’ the decision taken by the AICTE:
| For |
Against |
| AICTE officials:
-Engineering colleges using same resources for their engineering and science courses, leads to faculty being burdened and students getting a raw deal. -Irregularities in offering the courses - Many colleges having same laboratories and teachers for different courses -Majority of these colleges were located in the western region, where the approval for running these courses was given by the erstwhile Anna University of Technology, Coimbatore.
Former Anna University VC and IIT Kanpur chairman:
-Sometimes offering science courses by engineering colleges may lead to confusion in the minds of students. These institutions make it as a business proposition of having engineering colleges running science courses. -Science courses should not be offered in engineering colleges. If engineering colleges start offering arts and science courses, then these arts and science colleges and universities will get affected |
Faculty members, Teachers,VCs:
-Courses are popular among students who want a mix of science and engineering -Courses were time-tested, and offered a unique skill set to students -Some courses were offered the course at a time when most of today’s famous engineering colleges had not even opened -The college has been running graduate courses in various sciences as well as integrated courses since 1997. -For admission to the science courses, we hold interviews with applicants. Only the best 40 out of 1,000 applicants are taken in -Students are well placed after pursing these courses -The syllabus is very comprehensive -Framework of many of these courses had been laid out by faculty from the Indian Institutes of Technology -You cannot separate engineering from the sciences. Having courses that have aspects of both is necessary for students to develop various skill sets. -These courses have a unique combination of mathematics, physics, chemistry and engineering and nearly 25 percent of the content is from engineering subjects. Some of these courses were started way back in 1970s and 80s and even before the AICTE came into existence -Leading technical institutions like IITs and NITs are offering such courses -There are a few government aided institutions which are offering very good science courses that are much sought after by students. The industry too had recognized the worth of these courses.
Students/alumni:
-Engineering courses charge much more and the salaries may not be as good -We want to study computer science, but not as a branch of engineering -Students preferred opting for science courses at reputed engineering colleges, rather than engineering courses at newer engineering colleges.
Recruiting specialist:
There are subjects like analytics, statistics, mathematics and logic taught in depth in M.Sc. courses and companies regularly recruit these students for their skills
|
