Engineering courses can now be taken in Tamil too: AICTE

CHENNAI: Engineering colleges in the State can now offer their accredited courses in Tamil, using the translated resources created by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), chairman of the council Anil Sahasrabuddhe said on Thursday. “The AICTE has translated first-year course material into eight regional languages, including Tamil,” he told Express. AICTE-approved colleges may select a programme for which they have received NAAC accreditation, and offer in Tamil.

Conceived as part of the National Education Policy (NEP), the council set up a committee to translate the materials. The initiative was seeded in a bid to provide quality technical education to students who did not receive sufficient English training at school-level. It is aimed to benefit rural and tribal students.

A total of 14 colleges from across India, including two from Tamil Nadu, had requested materials in regional languages, the chairman said. In the academic year 2021-22, Erode Sengunthar Engineering College and Rathinam Technical Campus, Coimbatore, will offer first-year programme in Tamil. “It is not compulsory for any college. However, if any college wishes to do so, they can use these resources,” he said, adding that about three-quarters of engineering faculty in India use regional languages to teach. “Therefore, no additional facilities will be required on the part of the college,” he said.

Even as the course will be available in Tamil, technical words used in course materials will continue to be in English so students won’t feel left out, he said. However, students who learn in Tamil will have to take a compulsory English course at the college level. While the academic curriculum is not uniform across universities, there will be an at-least 70-80 per cent overlap, Sahasrabuddhe pointed out, adding that work is underway to create regional language subtitles to MOOC courses on NPTEL and Swayam platforms.

Currently, the first-year engineering course material is available in eight languages and may be expanded to 22 languages in a couple of years, he said. Further, second-year and higher courses too will subsequently be made available in regional languages.