Reforming Higher Education in India

To improve the standard of education in the nation and further enhance the quality of students being trained by the technical institutes of the nation, the government plans to not allow conventional low employability potential disciplines from the academic year 2020-2021.

What happened?

• Opposition members claimed that there is a mismatch between the demands of the industry and courses being imparted.
• This mismatch is forcing qualified engineers to look for jobs which are either unrelated to their skills or work on a sub-par wage (disguised unemployment).
• The government is serious about its commitment to ensuring that the engineering students are being trained well so that they can be a part of the Make in India initiative of the government.
• The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) will not allow colleges to run new conventional disciplines with low employment potential from the academic year 2020-21.
• Conventional courses like civil, mechanical, electrical and computer engineering are heavily over-leveraged and have high enrollment rates in the country.
• AICTE will seek to permit only emerging fields such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain, Robotics, Quantum Computing, Data Sciences, Cyber Security, and 3D Printing and Design.as courses in the colleges.

Smart India Hackathons

The MHRD minister also informed that Smart India hackathons are being organized to encourage innovations so that it can act as a funnel for Startup India.