Eligibility Criteria for Engineering Admission revised by AICTE
All India Council for Technical Education, AICTE has released the approval Process Handbook for academic session 2021-2021. As per the AICTE handbook 2021-22, Mathematics and Physics are not anymore compulsory subjects for the engineering aspirants as their core subjects in class 12.
As of now, students were required to have mathematics and physics as a compulsory subject in class 12 for taking admission in undergraduate engineering (B.E/ B. Tech) courses. After the revised rules, now students have to choose any three subjects from physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, computer science, electronics, IT, information practices, technical vocational subject, biotechnology, agriculture, business studies, engineering graphics and entrepreneurship.
AICTE’s revised regulation is in line with the National Education Policy’s vision that students should be offered more flexibility in their choice of subjects.
AICTE has also stated that the unreserved category students must have scored 45% marks, and reserved category students must score 40% marks in order to be eligible for admission in engineering courses.
AICETE has also proposed for a bridge course in maths and physics by the engineering colleges to strengthen the base of these subjects for students in initial semesters.
The new amendments by AICTE have received various criticisms. According to education experts, various emerging courses like data science and artificial intelligence would require a lot of understanding of mathematics, which bridge course will not be able to replace. So, AICTE must rethink the amendments done in the approval process handbook 2021-22.
The AICTE chairman said that, “its not optional, but the subject options engineering discipline has been expanded. Similar, there would be different mandatory courses for different disciplines”.