AICTE ‘seriously concerned’ about ‘below par’ quality of graduates

Kolkata, Feb 23 (IANS) The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is concerned with the below par quality of graduates, but hopes the SWAYAM programme for online courses will help address the problem, an official said here on Thursday.

"We are very seriously concerned. Everywhere in India there is the problem that quality of graduates is not up to par," AICTE Vice Chairman M.P. Poonia told media here at an international symposium on Gen Next initiatives for Digital India.

The conference has been organised by the JIS Group, the largest educational group in eastern India, and the BCCI.

Poonia said confidence building among students was key to having a global presence.

"Our students can make a mark in the international scenario and to do that they need to build confidence," he said.

The largest programme to up the quality of students, not only the graduates but also higher up, is the Swayam platform, he said.

Asked on the gender gap at IITs as not many women students take up engineering, Poonia clarified there was not really any disparity, pointing to the distribution of the women students across engineering and medical fields.

"See in engineering, girls are less. They are going for IT, computer science streams in engineering but not many in civil engineering etc which they feel needs a bit more hard work.

"But they are going for medical. There is no such disparity. The courses which they feel are preliminarily easy, they go for that. Overall we have a ratio of 30 to 70, 30 per cent girls and 70 per cent boys," he said.

Adding that AICTE was trying hard, Poonia said special schemes for women in Jammu and Kashmir were also on the agenda.

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