NEW DELHI: In a significant move that will allow thousands of additional students to get into engineering courses, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has ruled that Chemistry is not mandatory for admission into BTech and BE courses in the country.
Instead, students who have completed higher secondary with Physics and Mathematics along with other optional subjects including Biology and Biotechnology are also eligible to get into engineering courses from the next academic session. At present, a combination of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics is must for engineering streams.
Sources in the technical education regulator said from the academic session 2020-21, while Physics and Mathematics will be mandatory for pursuing BTech and BE degrees, students with either of the optional subjects will also be eligible for admission.
These optional subjects include Chemistry, Biotechnology, Biology, Computer Science, Information Technology, Informatics Practice, Agriculture, Engineering Graphic and Business Studies. Letters to all recognised engineering colleges, in this regard, have now been sent by the AICTE.
While most engineering colleges take admission on the basis of JEE (Main) conducted by the National Testing Agency, some states have their own admission process for engineering colleges.
“We are hoping that this year, this move will help students in those states but next year onwards the changed norms are also likely to reflect in JEE (Main),” another AICTE official said.
At present nearly 3,000 institutions offer 13.2 lakh undergraduate degrees in engineering and technology. If the courses such as architecture, design, planning and town planning are included, this number almost doubles.