HoneY
MaaPeya Da LaaDLa
may 13 2008
The three-year BSc course will soon be phased out across the country and replaced by a four-year BS course based on the American model.
In the new course, students in the first year will get a grounding in the core science streams, after which they will specialize and choose their electives. The thrust will be on encouraging a richer, inter-disciplinary approach instead of the text-oriented, uni-dimensional BSc that is now followed.
The Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institutes of Technology are likely to introduce the four-year programme in 2009 and other universities across India will follow suit, sources said.
Although it is not clear whether students will be admitted on the basis of a common entrance exam as is the case in the US, sources say that this could well be the case to ensure that quality students make it. In March this year, the Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS) wrote to the National Academy of Sciences, India, and the Indian National Science Academy stating that the five-year-old American model should be looked at seriously. The three academies together decide on science education in the country.
"Several academics have been talking about a four-year undergraduate science course. On an individual level not much can be done so it was considered time for the academies to officially take up the issue," said N Mukunda, chairman of the science education panel at the IAS.
The three academies and vice-chancellors of several universities are meeting soon to discuss the new concept. "We are thinking of introducing it first in the top institutes, and then extending it to other colleges," Mukunda added.
NASI president Ashok Misra said most of his faculty liked the new system, which with its emphasis on practical and project work would be more professional and closer to an engineering degree, a BTech.
"Our engineers are lapped up by industry, why shouldn't it be the same with our science graduates? Also, a quality programme will allow bright students to take up a PhD immediately after they graduate, thus saving them a year," he said.
According to professors, the first year or so will be devoted to the study of the core subjects — physics, chemistry, the life sciences, mathematics, earth sciences — after which the student will choose an area of specialisation and an elective.
"Currently, if a student takes up life sciences, he is cut off from maths," said Mukunda. "But the new system will allow him to pursue a mix of life science and maths or physics and life sciences. The idea is to encourage cross-disciplinary studies."
IAS said that the current BSc programme involves a good deal of repetition of what a student has already learnt at the high-school level. This will be remedied. The syllabus will be so structured that an engineering graduate who drops out could easily join this four-year science programme or vice versa. And, as is the practice in the IITs, said NASI president Misra, the humanities will be included as electives.
The three-year BSc course will soon be phased out across the country and replaced by a four-year BS course based on the American model.
In the new course, students in the first year will get a grounding in the core science streams, after which they will specialize and choose their electives. The thrust will be on encouraging a richer, inter-disciplinary approach instead of the text-oriented, uni-dimensional BSc that is now followed.
The Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institutes of Technology are likely to introduce the four-year programme in 2009 and other universities across India will follow suit, sources said.
Although it is not clear whether students will be admitted on the basis of a common entrance exam as is the case in the US, sources say that this could well be the case to ensure that quality students make it. In March this year, the Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS) wrote to the National Academy of Sciences, India, and the Indian National Science Academy stating that the five-year-old American model should be looked at seriously. The three academies together decide on science education in the country.
"Several academics have been talking about a four-year undergraduate science course. On an individual level not much can be done so it was considered time for the academies to officially take up the issue," said N Mukunda, chairman of the science education panel at the IAS.
The three academies and vice-chancellors of several universities are meeting soon to discuss the new concept. "We are thinking of introducing it first in the top institutes, and then extending it to other colleges," Mukunda added.
NASI president Ashok Misra said most of his faculty liked the new system, which with its emphasis on practical and project work would be more professional and closer to an engineering degree, a BTech.
"Our engineers are lapped up by industry, why shouldn't it be the same with our science graduates? Also, a quality programme will allow bright students to take up a PhD immediately after they graduate, thus saving them a year," he said.
According to professors, the first year or so will be devoted to the study of the core subjects — physics, chemistry, the life sciences, mathematics, earth sciences — after which the student will choose an area of specialisation and an elective.
"Currently, if a student takes up life sciences, he is cut off from maths," said Mukunda. "But the new system will allow him to pursue a mix of life science and maths or physics and life sciences. The idea is to encourage cross-disciplinary studies."
IAS said that the current BSc programme involves a good deal of repetition of what a student has already learnt at the high-school level. This will be remedied. The syllabus will be so structured that an engineering graduate who drops out could easily join this four-year science programme or vice versa. And, as is the practice in the IITs, said NASI president Misra, the humanities will be included as electives.
