New Delhi: India’s premier engineering academy, the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi and Bombay, have taken up the task of revamping its curriculum in an attempt to provide holistic and relevant education, which meets and caters to industry needs.
The changes are expected to be implemented by the upcoming academic session.
Professor Kishore Chatterjee, the head convenor of the committee which overhauled the curriculum in IIT Bombay, told ThePrint that the syllabus – which was last updated in 2007 — was in need of revision since as the aspirations of the stakeholders had changed significantly since then.
Chatterjee said, “The HASMED (Humanities, Arts, Social Science, Management, Entrepreneurship, Design) courses which we have now added to the curriculum will enable students to become well-rounded professionals. Organisations are now looking for engineers with leadership and management skills in addition to technical knowledge. The new curriculum, which is flexible in nature, will enable our students towards that end.”
At IIT Bombay, therefore, the objective is to make study at the undergraduate level flexible and relevant as per industry standards.
Students here can now handpick HASMED subjects and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) as their electives, in addition to core engineering courses.
Professor Chatterjee said, “Students previously had to credit more or less a fixed set of courses which included humanities and interdisciplinary courses. In the new curriculum, we have increased the number of courses which belong to the category of HASMED and STEM. After conducting surveys, which included taking feedback from alumni, faculty, students and recruiters, we found that there were several other skills in addition to the pure technical ones that needed to be inculcated among our graduates.”
He explained that not all students aspired to go into the field of technical research. Some students go for consultancy and some would like to play managerial roles while others move to entrepreneurship. “It is important that we cater to the varied aspirations of all our students,” he added.
The makeover to the Bombay IIT curriculum is being given by an 11-member committee set up in 2019. The committee is also represented by students.
IIT Delhi Director Rangan Banerjee had spoken about the need for a curriculum revamp soon after his appointment. He had told ThePrint: “This is a part of the process at IIT, wherein every 10 years, the curriculum is reevaluated in order to keep it practical and relevant as per the evolving times.”
The recently-appointed director also said the revamp would provide students an opportunity to interact with the real world. He said, “We are trying to provide in our curriculum, challenges and opportunities for students to engage with the real world and hence a complete revamp was needed. So, hopefully, next year we should be able to see many changes. Right now we are doing extensive consultation with faculty, students and alumni.”
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