Thiruvananthapuram: B Voc to add credit to B Tech

Thiruvananthapuram: In a bid to help B Tech students who could not get sufficient credits to pass the course, APJ Abdul Kalam University to begin B Voc course from 2020 academic year.

This was part of the many proposals mooted by the university to revamp the B Tech courses.

Apart from this, it has also plans for academically brilliant students who join B.Tech to enhance their competencies. They can avail of B. Tech honours by taking extra credits and a minor degree along with B. Tech specialising in any subject.

B. Voc courses are meant for students who could not find minimum credits needed for passing the engineering courses. These students can study other vocational courses and complete the B. Voc courses.

Sources said that 24 streams of BTech would be grouped into six major streams when it comes to BVoc. Though AICTE has given permission to 384 universities across the country for starting BVoc courses, not more than 30 have been able to launch the course.

G.P. Padmakumar, the registrar of APJ Abdul Kalam University, told Deccan Chronicle that it had started the process for completing various formalities regarding the B Voc courses. This included the formation of the curriculum for the course. Moreover, there was a need for discussions with the representatives of the industrial sector, said Mr Padmakumar.

Technological University Vice-Chancellor M.S. Rajasree said that students of B Tech courses who could not find minimum credits needed for passing the engineering courses would be allowed to carry the credits to the B Voc course and pass the course by acquiring the remaining credits from vocational subjects.

Besides, there will be provisions for other students to join the B Voc course directly. A decision has to be made on vocational courses that will become part of the B Voc course. The course will be run as per the provisions of the AICTE norms, said Ms Rajasree.

Former Pro-VC of the university M Abdul Rahman said that the proposal for introducing vocational courses for the benefit of students who failed to complete B Tech course either in the degree or diploma level was in consideration of the university for the past many years. However, nothing concrete materialised in the past.

There are other suggestions under consideration for students who are not academically brilliant.

Draft regulations being prepared by the university suggested that students will be permitted to join the vocational course by the end of the fifth semester.

The four months in the fifth and seventh semester will be set apart for the internship.

They can do an internship at the ASAP programme of the higher education department and industries.

A portal for ensuring internship at industries has been developed this year.

The total credits needed for completing BTech courses in the state from 2019 admissions is fixed at 162. Till now it was 182.

The additional time got from reducing the number of credits will be given for internship, entrepreneurship development and remedial classes for academically backward students.

The low pass percentage in the B Tech courses in the state had been a cause of concern in the past also.

An expert committee appointed by the Kerala High Court to study the problems of the self-financing engineering colleges in 2011 had concluded that many of them lacked quality.  Some of them had a pass percentage as low as two.

It was against this background that the state government had proposed to improve technical education and impose strict norms for admission to B Tech courses in self-financing colleges, but unfortunately, it has kept the plan on the backburner.

The proposal was that the colleges would be allowed for admission only if they followed strict academic standards for four years from 2015-16.