'ACITE wants engineering graduates to become entrepreneurs'

COIMBATORE: The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has been focusing on making students set up their own businesses rather than be job seekers, said AICTE advisor Dileep Malkhede on Saturday.

"We have been promoting activities such as incubation centre and to promote entrepreneurship we have several initiatives such as giving funds for SC/ST students to start their own businesses," he said. AICTE has also started having courses on entrepreneurship which has been adopted by universities. He was responding to a question on the nature of current job market where graduates find it difficult to get jobs.

Speaking on the side-lines of the convocation of Kumaraguru College of Technology which to participate in which he was in the city, Malkhede said AICTE's decision to change the teacher student ratio in technical institutions from 1:15 to 1:20 was because of the body's move to reduce the number of credits from 190 to 160. "The load of credits is substantially reduced and so only a lesser number of teachers are required," he said. However, Malkhede added that the ratio given by AICTE was the minimum and if institutions needed more teachers they are free to have them.

Malkhede said AICTE had earlier discussed introducing a centralised entrance examination for undergraduate engineering courses in the country. "AICTE had discussed introducing a common entrance exam for engineering courses as now several universities have their own entrance exams and students have to prepare for them separately," said Malkhede. He said like having GATE exam for M.Tech admissions and JEE for admissions to IITs, the apex body had been considering to have the common exam for UG courses also. The common entrance exam would also do away with the hefty fee charged by many institutions for admissions, he said.

Speaking of the model curriculum introduced by the apex body this year, Malkhede said students would no longer expected to do rote learning, but would be expected to have practical knowledge and should know how to implement the concepts they learn.

When asked about the nature of current job market where graduates find it difficult to get jobs, Malkhede said AICTE has been focusing on making students set up their own businesses rather than be job seekers. "We have been promoting activities such as incubation centre and to promote entrepreneurship we have several initiatives such as giving funds for SC/ST students to start their own businesses," he said. AICTE has also started having courses on entrepreneurship which has been adopted by universities.