Rebooting curricula
The country's curriculum planners in IT and computing subjects have not been able keep up with trends and mould courses that sharply focus on new areas of study. Will the ACM report help academics envision a new course regime?
THE COUNTRY'S institutions of higher learning have a lot of catching up to do in redefining the ambit of computing courses and remoulding their curricula to keep pace with emerging trends, even as India forges ahead as a major IT player globally.
Overlapping curriculum in different branches of computing, often without a clear focus, has been the bane of our IT and computing education, say prominent IT educational experts. "All branches focus on core traditional content plus a set of specialities without very clear vision," says S. Achuthsankar S. Nair, former director of C-DiT, Thiruvananthapuram, and now a senior lecturer at the Department Of Computer Science, University of Kerala.
Overlapping
"We have BCA, MCA, BE/B.Tech. in computer science, BE/B.Tech. in information technology, B.Sc. in computer science, M.Sc. in computer science and integrated M.Sc. in computer science /software engineering and M.Tech. programmes."
"The different programmes in terms of curricula are highly overlapping and attempt to be everything to everyone. MCA programmes are available both in engineering and arts and science colleges," explains C.R. Muthukrishnan, professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Chennai.
While computer science and engineering and information technology are among the most common B.Tech. branches, they go by different names. So computer science and engineering, computer engineering and software engineering mean more or less the same thing, says M.P. Sebastian, chairman of Information Technology & Communication Centre of the National Institute of Technnology, Calicut. This is also the case with information technology and information systems.
The IT course is almost the same as computer science with some theoretical subjects replaced by electronics subjects, points out Dr. Nair.
Electronics and communication, a very popular course that also has computing elements, covers the computer hardware part and some applications. Otherwise, it mostly deals with electronic circuits and communication aspects. It is a part of electrical engineering in the West and so also in the IITs, says Dr. Sebastian.
Over-ambitious
The curriculum implementation of the degree programmes in computing tends to be poor and over-ambitious in terms of the ground covered, says Dr. Muthukrishnan. He says: "The degree programmes cover basics of computers, programming, software and topics such as databases, networks and software engineering in addition to electives. The curriculum is heavy with advanced courses and many students absorb and retain (what they have learnt) only to a very limited extent.
The examinations, mostly, if not all, are of descriptive type and have little or no problem solving, objective type questions. Application-oriented courses - information systems, business applications, software design - are few relative to technology courses.
Lack of infrastructure
And theory predominates at the expense of practical skills with the students not having enough free access to computers.
"Programming courses are very theoretical (lecture based) in nature and the time students devote to learn programming (the practical part) is not substantial enough." And students do not have enough access to computers in most programming labs, as they are made to follow a timetable, and given a standard, fixed set of programming problems year after year. They fall back on the work of the previous batches instead of writing the programmes themselves.
Dr. Muthukrishnan says: "This severely impacts the programming competence that students acquire." The basic problem lay in the programming laboratories being treated like the laboratories for other engineering subjects with a "slotted timetable."
"There is a severe shortage of faculty in computer science/IT and the available faculty are also not well-trained in the subjects. Internet access is poor in many colleges restricting the use of available, good quality open courseware."
The American way
Dr. Muthukrishnan "highly recommends" the ACM curriculum report to faculty and curriculum planners in the country. "Existing curricula can be weighed against the background of the report" to pave the way for improvements in terms of focus and better match of courses to job types and requirements.
Dr. Sebastian feels that restructuring the curriculum according to the American model may be a need for the State universities rather than the IITs and NITs, which "always considered top U.S. universities as their reference model" and generally met the IT industry's requirements.
"I don't see any real need for a report akin to the American because we follow the same curriculum pattern," he says.
Besides, the computer science and engineering course, as offered by IITs and NITs, covers the background on all aspects of computers - hardware, software, theoretical and applications, he explains.
The Indian scene
However, Dr. Nair says: "If we adopt the American nomenclatures and models, they may in all likelihood fail to contrast IT and information systems and simply avoid the new specialities."
The All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) or Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE) should come up with a comprehensive report. The entrance commissioner should telecast programmes to educate parents and students on scope and nature of various branches, he adds. The AICTE/ISTE, in association with professional societies and industry, can also come up with the revision of their recommended curricula for computer science/computer engineering/IT, based on the report, which will serve as the 0impetus for many institutions. The essence of a good curriculum is in what to select, what to leave out as well as the integrity and quality of implementation, says Dr. Muthukrishnan.
We are now witnessing the phenomenon of IT companies recruiting engineering students across the board, irrespective of the branches they study. Why is this so?
Since IT has become the last choice of engineering aspirants, those with low ranks go for it. Companies "naturally look for better stuff" in other branches like civil or mechanical engineering, says Dr. Nair. Aptitude and commonsense are at the top of their agenda when IT companies go head hunting, says Dr. Sebastian. Their have both current and long term requirements. For their current ad hoc requirements, centring on programming skills, they choose candidates from non-computer science branches, including civil engineering. "For long term requirements, they choose primarily computer science/engineering candidates who have strong fundamental knowledge of algorithmic, hardware, software and theoretical computer science," says Dr Sebastian.
T. RAMACHANDRAN
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