BENGALURU: The Karnataka education department is looking at increasing the internship duration of diploma students and those in engineering colleges. Industry representatives are in agreement with this and a task force has been constituted for the purpose.
This was made known by the deputy chief minister and minister for higher education Dr CN Ashwath Narayan on Friday evening after the first meeting of the task force. The higher education department formed the task force under the chairmanship of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) vice chancellor Karisiddappa. It is meant to study the suitable duration and design of internships for engineering and diploma students in the state.
Ashwath Narayan said the current internship of four weeks is too short and there is a proposal to increase the duration to three to six months. This was also suggested by NASSCOM and CII representatives who were present in the meeting.
"The contact between students and the industry has to increase and that led met to think that the duration must be raised to a semester," said Ashwath Narayan. He said the task force was created so that experts study the viability of the idea.
Only if they connect with the industry during their course will students have a bright future. The job market is very competitive and students should be skilled by the time they come out as graduates, he said.
Higher Education Council vice-president Thimmagowda, executive director Gopala Joshi and college education commissioner P Pradeep were present at the meeting.
Meanwhile, admissions for engineering students are still underway. Considering the delays in holding the examination due to the pandemic, AICTE announced an extension of the admission deadline for engineering colleges until December 31. In case counselling and admissions have not started due to the delayed CET in the state, the extension applies. It also applies if counselling was not yet over with a rider that classes were not started for more than 15 days to take care of academic requirements of students to avoid academic losses.