‘India can’t be tech global leader without core engineering courses’

AICTE chairman Prof TG Sitharam was at Lucknow University on the final day of an educational summit on Feb 17.

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is working to strengthen the core engineering courses—civil, mechanical and electronics—by breaking the myth that only students from IT sector or computer engineering background are getting the big fat salary package as compared to core engineering.

AICTE chairman Prof TG Sitharam said this at Lucknow University here on the third and final day of an educational summit on Saturday. He said if India has to develop and progress, it is the core engineering sector that has to play a major role.

“To boost admissions in core engineering courses, including civil, mechanical and electronics, AICTE will now allow students pursuing these programmes flexibility to also pursue a minor degree in any emerging area,” he said.

“India cannot become Vishva Guru (global leader) in technology without core engineering courses. Therefore, we have come up with some schemes to promote core engineering,” Prof Sitharam added.

Placement portal for students of semi urban, village, tribal areas

To help engineering students of semi urban, village and tribal area with good placement opportunities, the AICTE has developed a placement portal that will emerge as a powerful tool to help bridge the gap between urban and rural areas in terms of access to employment opportunities.

He talked about the success of the internship portal with 2 crore students registered across all streams and highlighted initiatives like Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat (EBSB) by urging students to study in various locations of India to see real Bharat.

‘Need to promote collaboration’

Prof Sitharam emphasised the need to promote collaboration between institutions to promote concepts like dual degrees and twin programmes. He talked about the government initiative i.e. I-STEM (Indian Science, Technology and Engineering Facilities Map), an online national portal aiding researchers in locating specific facilities for their R&D work. He urged institutions to be financially independent, stressing self-fund generation.

He highlighted key achievements in higher education, including foreign collaborations with up to 1600 foreign experts sharing their insights and expertise in Indian higher educational institutes, India becoming the largest patent-filing country due to reduction of patent fee and the success of indigenous startups and reaching a market capital of 500 billion USD in startup. He said many Indian startups had become unicorns.

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