The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has approved the bids of 89 engineering schools across the nation. In addition, the council has for the first time authorised 80 additional institutions, the majority of which are privately run, to begin offering undergraduate courses in the three main thrust areas of the center—VLSI (semiconductors) design, logistics, and advanced communication technology.
According to the official, this is the first time that three new UG courses have been introduced. The majority of the courses fall under the category of electronics engineering, and the institutions that have been given permission to provide them are those that are eager to offer programmes in these priority areas.
Although the government first announced the introduction of two such courses in February, colleges are now beginning to offer degree degrees in these fundamental areas of electronics.
This is the first time that full-fledged undergraduate courses are being launched in these thrust areas, according to Prof. Rajive Kumar, Member Secretary, AICTE. “Up until now, we only had a few colleges offering postgraduate programmes in VLSI design and communication technology, including some of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
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The government has already made its push for developing large-scale semi-conductor industries in the country, for which there is a need to develop human resources.
“With the help of ministry of electronics and IT and communications, we have prepared the syllabi for these courses. Also, we are preparing human resources for teaching these courses through faculty development programmes where we have professionals from the industry as well as those from IITs to train lecturers in this field. Initially, some institutions were apprehensive if they will be able to fill up seats, but now they are convinced that there will be huge demand,” added Kumar.
In order to assist in the development of faculty for the new courses, the council has worked with two companies that are the largest chip design companies in the nation.
The goal of the “Semicon India” plan, which the national government began in 2021, is to train 85,000 semi-conductor experts over the following ten years. The three focus areas of the administration headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi have been PM Gatishakti (logistics), semi-conductors (VLSI), and the advancement of cutting-edge communication technology like 5G.
