New Disciplines With Low Employment Potentials To Not Be Allowed By AICTE From 2020-21: HRD Minister

In a development that may spurn a major change in engineering and other disciplines, Union Minister for Human Resource Development Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ has informed the Lok Sabha that AICTE will only allow courses in emerging fields from 2020-21, PTI has reported.

In a written answer to a question on employability of Indian graduates, Nishank informed that the Indian higher education regulator AICTE won’t allow new conventional disciplines citing their low employment potential and will instead focus on emerging fields like Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, 3D printing etc.

Skill development has been a major area of focus for the current government with the Skill India program being implemented to bridge the gap between industry needs and supply. Compulsory internships have already been instituted by the AICTE to increase student-industry interaction.

Entrepreneurship development is also in focus through the Startup India programme, with the several Smart India Hackathons having been conducted to foster startups. Pokhriyal also said that engineering students are being trained so that they can participate in the government’s ‘Make In India’ program.