AICTE bats for engineering books by Indian authors

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has moved in to promote academic books authored by Indian scholars in various engineering disciplines.

This comes months after the technical education regulator rolled out a revised curriculum for technical education programmes.

In its latest communication, the AICTE has asked higher education institutions to consider “impressing upon” their faculty members and students to refer to engineering books authored by Indians and published in India.

It has also given a list of over 500 books,recommended by a committee of experts, by Indian authors on various engineering subjects for consideration to the heads of higher education institutions.

“Students will be befitted by these books as they are in sync with the new model curriculum that we notified in January this year for all technical programmes,” an AICTE official said.

“I believe that these books drawing the experience of Indian authors and contextualized to Indian settings will definitely aid the students in better learning of the concepts and in turn improve their quality,” the AICTE chairman Anil Sahasrabudhe said in his letter to all university vice chancellors and heads of engineering colleges.

The AICTE chief also urged the deemed-to-be-universities, offering technical programmes, to consider referring the Indian authors' books to their students and faculty members.

“You will agree that these books by Indian authors and publishers need more encouragement among students and teachers. I request you to impress upon the faculty and students in your university/ institution to refer to the books by Indian authors and publishers,” he said.

This would also prompt many Indian authors to pen new technical books and in new areas too, augmenting the horizon of technical education "in the Indian scenario," he added.

Many universities offering technical programmes have already adopted the model curriculum from this academic year while the rest are expected to adopt it from the next academic session starting 2019.