After the All India Council for Technical Education on March 12 issued new guidelines removing physics, chemistry and mathematics as a man...
After the All India Council for Technical Education on March 12 issued new guidelines removing physics, chemistry and mathematics as a mandatory requirement for students seeking admission to engineering courses, a vociferous debate ensued in educational circles. Most of the responses have tended to focus on why mathematics is central to undergraduate engineering education – or not.
However, in order to understand the AICTE’s decision, it is necessary to acknowledge the larger context of the expansion of higher education and policy directions in recent years.
Even as the new guidelines dropped physics, chemistry and mathematics as being compulsory, they also expanded the list of subjects students can take in the engineering college entrance exams. The rationale for introducing these new subjects lies in the National Education Policy of 2020, which called for multidisciplinarity, flexibility and choice in education.
Expressing the need to break the silos between arts, humanities, vocational education and professional education, the New Education Policy has suggested many reforms in higher education.
The reforms have three interrelated aims: increasing multidisciplinarity in courses, expanding the capacity of institutions and increasing the Gross Enrollment Ratio – the ratio of the number of students who live in the country to those who qualify for the particular grade level. As the National...Read more
