The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) on Tuesday launched a calendar for AICTE's outcome-based engineering book discussion for undergraduate and diploma level books in different Indian languages. The Engineering Book Discussion calendar launch is in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020's vision to make technical education accessible in Indian mother tongues. The first series of AICTE discussions kicked off on November 29 and will go on till January 31, 2023.
As per an official statement, part of the first series of discussions that is set to conclude on January 31, 2023, will be first-year engineering books in Hindi, Odia and Marathi medium along with second-year engineering books in English medium from the five major disciplines -- Mechanical, Electrical, Electronics and Communication, Civil and Computer Science.
In the next phase of book discussion, the statement added, starting from February 2022 the AICTE engineering books in other languages Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, Urdu and Assamese will be discussed.
Speaking on the occasion Professor M Jagadesh Kumar, Chairman, AICTE New Delhi, said, “NEP 2022 has guided us that learning has to happen in students' own languages. If you see the list of top 10 countries which have obtained the largest number of Nobel Prizes, you will see that in each country, kids study from a young age to PhD in their own mother tongues."
The AICTE in the statement said that among the first-year books covered in discussions include Mathematics-1 and 2, Applied Physics-1, Applied Chemistry, Engineering Graphics, Fundamentals of Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Environmental Science (all diploma level).
“Nine books at the undergraduate level namely, Chemistry-I, Programming for Problem Solving, Engineering Graphics and Design, Basic Electrical Engineering, Workshop / Manufacturing Practices, Physics (Introduction to Electromagnetic Theory), Physics (Introduction to Mechanics), Mathematics-1 – Calculus and Linear Algebra (For Non Computer Science Engineering Branches) and Mathematics-1 – Calculus and Linear Algebra (For Computer Science Engineering Branches) will also be part of the online panel discussion,” it added.
Five second-year books will also be part of discussion series are Python Programming, Information Technology Workshop in Matlab, Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Machines, Digital Electronics and Data Structures Theory and Practicals.
AICTE has initiated a technical book writing scheme in the year 2021-22 to provide study material in Indian languages — Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Kannada, Punjabi, Odia. Assamese, Urdu and Malayalam
These books, AICTE added, have the potential to be utilized in Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Centrally Funded Technical Institute (CFTIs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) and AICTE-approved institutes. “AICTE is distributing one set of books in Indian languages for the libraries of each Degree and diploma level institution of the state.”
“In 2022-23, AICTE has already initiated the process for the second year's original book writing in English followed by its translation into 12 Indian languages,” the council added.