Life skills set to be part of tech courses

NEW CURRICULUM TO COME INTO FORCE IN JUNE Lack of inter-personal skills has been affecting the employment prospects of most engineering students.

Inter-personal and life skills will be made part of the curriculum for engineering students from this year. At present, the curriculum for engineering courses is confined to making students “technologically sound” with no focus on developing their inter-personal skills.

Sources point out that lack of inter-personal skills has been affecting the employment prospects of most engineering students and employers are having to spend 25 per cent of their expenses on training these students on inter-personal and life skills after recruiting them.

The AICTE has appointed an 11-member committee to examine the issue and devise the new curriculum.

JNTU-Hyderabad Vice Chancellor, Prof D.N. Reddy, is one of the members of the committee and is also heading the sub-committee on engineering sciences. The committee will draft the new curriculum by March, which would be approved in April. The new curriculum will come into force from the new academic year in June.

From this year, for the first time, there will be a uniform curriculum for the entire country and all engineering colleges will have to adopt a semester and grading system for exams.

“Ten per cent of the new curriculum will comprise humanities like inter-personal and life skills. The other 15 per cent will be in basic science subjects like mathematics, 25 per cent in engineering sciences and 40 per cent on core subjects.
The objective is to integrate humanities into engineering curriculum and to make engineers well-rounded individuals apart from making the course interesting,” said Prof. Reddy.

He said unlike management students, who are taught inter-personal skills as part of curriculum, engineering students are usually known for their lack of communication skills.

“During campus placements, most companies complain about the poor communication skills of engineering students though they are technically sound.

The new curriculum will bridge the gap between the academia and industry,” Prof. Reddy added.