Encourage students to choose core engineering courses: IIT-M Director

Students who wish to join engineering must be encouraged to choose core engineering programmes, said V. Kamakoti, Director of the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras.

At an event organised by the Pan IIT Alumni Leadership Series here on Friday, Mr. Kamakoti said 99.9% of toppers in JEE (Advanced) had chosen computer science and engineering. “We must see a significant number of students go into core engineering. If a topper chooses civil or mechanical engineering it should be because they like it. We must reach out to students in the core engineering departments and try to educate them on professions,” he said.

Since autonomous colleges had the freedom to design their curriculum they could fine tune their syllabus to align their curriculum and research with the 17 sustainable development goals. Institutions must also consider introducing interdisciplinary programmes, he said.

Students can go for dual degrees, take the GATE. Humanities could tweak their syllabi to encourage students to take up civil services as the country needed to have administrators who are tech-savvy policy makers for future India, he said.

IIT-Tirupati director Kalidindi N. Satyanarayana recalled his early efforts of reaching out to engineering colleges to explain the importance of the discipline. The country had completed only half its requirement of infrastructure, he said, emphasising the need for more students to take up core engineering programmes. Directors from IITs in Dharwad, Hyderabad, and Bhubhaneshwar also shared their insights on engineering education at the PALS (Pan IIT Alumni Leadership Series) event.

Vijayalakshmi Sankar, co-chair of PALS who presented the annual report said it had delivered 29 programmes reaching out to 23,600 students. It worked with around 50 engineering institutions in six States and Nepal. PALS is an initiative of the IIT alumni that conducts outreach programmes for engineering colleges, including management, faculty and students.