New M Tech course for science students

All India Council for Technical Education will come up with a dual degree course for second year BSc students, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Apr 15, 2007, 18:54:50 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The alarm raised by leading academicians like Professor CNR Rao over falling number of students in science education has prompted All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to come up with a dual degree course for second year BSc students. They would have a chance to obtain both B Tech and M Tech degrees after completing a new integrated programme in the science streams.

To be started from the next academic year all over the country, the students opting for the course will get both B Tech and M Tech degree after four years. "A BSc student will have an option to opt for the course in the second year of BSc. After four years, the institute will grant the student with two degrees," said Professor Damodar Acharya, chairperson of AICTE.

Aimed at producing engineers with good science background, the course will be available in emerging areas like biotechnology, material science, engineering, electronics, nano-technology and polymer science.

HRD minister Arjun Singh told state education ministers that good BSc students currently do not have enough opportunities to enter into these areas of technical education. "AICTE has approved later entry for BSc students to provide them better employment opportunities," he said.

The first integrated M Tech programme of four years in the country will be available to the students who have Mathematics as one of the core subjects in BSc. The syllabus for the new course has been developed in such a way that it suits aptitude of the students with science background, Acharya said, and assured that it will not lead to fall in the quality of the M Tech course.

"We believe that students joining this course will have a strong science knowledge to pursue the dual course," he contended.

The AICTE dual degree course, officials say, is different from dual degree courses provided by educational institutes like BITS Pilani. "In BITS Pilani the students enrol in a major programme and a second programme to obtain a dual degree. But, in the new M Tech integrated course the students will enrol only in one programme but will get two degrees at end of the course," a AICTE official told HT.

The course will be available in specialised institutes in science streams from the next academic year. "We have already intimated the institutes about the new course and very soon the list of institutes providing the integrated programme will be available on the AICTE website," the official said, adding that students in second year of BSc will be eligible to apply for this course.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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