Social Science in engineering upsets many

BENGALURU: Engineering students from over 3,000 colleges in the country will have to study humanities and social sciences as well while pursuing their undergraduate degree from the upcoming academic year.

According to the model curriculum from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), all engineering colleges, except IITs and NITs, have been notified to teach courses such as management, environmental science, Indian Constitution and Essence of Indian tradition and culture. A big share of students, however, is unhappy on the move while others have welcomed it as a ‘holistic approach.’

Students see ‘additional burden’
Many students see this as an additional burden. Dev Anand, a mechanical engineering student from the city said, “These are subjects which we have studied at the school level itself. The varsity should take necessary steps to put us in par with the industry standards by updating the curriculum to ensure placements rather than trying to do so,” he said. However, Dr K.R. Venugaopal, Principal, University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE) supported the move as it will encourage multi-disciplinary thoughts among budding engineers and make them more responsible citizens.

No credits for new subjects
As elaborated in the model curriculum, the students will have to earn a total of 12 credits with respect to the humanities and social sciences programmes, over the four years of pursuing their undergraduate degree.

However, students will not earn any credit for the mandatory environment science and Indian Constitution/Essence of Indian tradition courses, even though the engineering institutes are required to compulsorily run them.

This has further upset the students. Suparna C., a civil engineering student, said, “Why would we even be present for such classes and put in efforts to understand new unrelated concepts if no credits are awarded?”
Addressing such issues from the side of an educator, Dr Venugopal echoes the sentiment. “Such courses should not be classified under audit courses (as run at present by most colleges) as a sense of equal importance to these as well should be cultivated among takers. All these courses can be integrated to an eight-credit course (2 credits per year), in order to make them realise how multi-disciplinarity leads to global competence,” he opined.

Students and educators had pointed out similar issues earlier this year after the University Grants Commission (UGC) directed colleges to include courses on disaster management and financial emergencies across colleges in the country, starting next academic year.