IIT slammed over move to redesign its courses

Hyderabad: Several people raised issues on social media platforms against the IITs decision to redesign courses to include credits for arts and humanities, including appreciation of creative arts. The IITs say it is for holistic development of engineers and to boost innovation, research in classical music, art forms and architecture.

The move came in for criticism after Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant ,tweeted that he was delighted that IITs are redesigning their courses.

In response, Arun Purohit put out a tweet saying, “Dear Mr Kant IITs and IITians are already doing wonderful. If you can do something do something for govt schools which stink like shit and no self respecting parent including bureaucrats will send their kids to them in worst nightmares (sic)”.

A fourth-year PhD student in philosophy from IIT Bombay said, “I must say that I am suspicious of the government’s intention here, given the fact that that it has damaged the education system enough by trying to rewrite history and blindly glorifying the past by attributing many discoveries of modern science and technology to Vedas and Upanishads. None other than the PM stated that genetic science existed in ancient times. The government is so obsessed with the past that it hinders the path towards the future. I hope the government’s decision is not to do that.” 

He added that arts, humanities and creative arts subjects have definitely a lot to do with being human. “They introduce reflexivity, push towards inclusivity and appreciate taste and delight in independent ideas and thoughts. They make us dare to think and criticise which, after all, is the basic point of education,” he said.

IIT Roorkee alumni Achuth Menon said, “They are introducing these courses not because they want to reduce the quality of technical education provided by IITs but to increase the effectiveness in real life. Often times, graduates from these institutions excel in technical work but often fall short on the people front.” He said by introducing these courses, the institutions were providing students with training on the people side to be more effective leaders. “The reason they are picking up IITs is entirely based on the calibre of the students.”

IIT-Kharagpur student Akash Boda, a Telugu student, said the main aim behind the course was to increase the value by adding them first in the prestigious colleges and then introducing them in government schools and colleges.