IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay Restructure Curriculum to Meet Industry Needs; Check Details Here

New Delhi: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi is set for a complete curriculum revamp for all courses after over a decade, according to the institute's new Director Rangan Banerjee. IIT Bombay will begin the newly developed curriculum for the primary-yr freshers.

In an interview, Banerjee told PTI the knowledge and technology landscape is rapidly changing and the curriculum has to match up the pace, and therefore IIT-Delhi has formed a panel for the curriculum review for all courses.

"We are going through a complete review of our curriculum so that we can enhance the student experience. The exercise is being conducted after over a decade. Over the last several years, IITs have moved from being predominantly undergraduate and engineering institutions to full-fledged universities offering a wide range of courses," he said.

"We are trying to provide in our curriculum, challenges and opportunities for students to engage with the real world and hence a complete revamp was needed. So hopefully next year we should be able to see many changes. Right now we are doing extensive consultation with faculty,students and alumni," he added.

Talking at length, Kishore Chatterjee, convenor of the UG Curriculum Review Committee at IIT Bombay and professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, says, "The curriculum gets revised from time to time to remain in sync with the aspirations of all the stake holders, with the last major revamp being conducted in 2007. This time round the institute has brought in some innovative concepts. All first-year engineering students will have to engage in a departmental introductory course over two semesters that will cover the history and the future perspective of their chosen stream.”

These students would be organised into groups under what the institute calls 'Makers Space' to provide hands-on experience in building new products and services. "Makerspace will complement the earlier workshop practice and engineering drawing classes to inculcate the penchant for ‘synthesis’ among the students," Chatterjee says, adding that the institute has introduced two new basket of courses – HASMED (Humanities, Arts, Social Science, Management, Entrepreneurship, Design) and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) that will be taught along with the compulsory core engineering and departmental elective courses. Right from ‘Philosophy of Mind’, ‘Marketing and Finance for Entrepreneurs’, and ‘Innovation by Design’ (under HASMED) to ‘Embedded Systems’, and ‘Motion Planning of Autonomous Vehicles’ (under STEM electives), the courses are based on students’ appetite and interest, Chatterjee explains.