AICTE'

All-India Council for Technical Education has come out with a plan that will allow B.Sc. degree students with mathematics as a subject and 60 per cent aggregate at the U.G. level to gain lateral entry into the second year or third semester of the B.E./B.Tech course. Till now, only students with a diploma in engineering offered in polytechnics could enter laterally in an engineering programme. The AICTE recently notified the new regulations for lateral admission to engineering programmes. The body responsible for overseeing the technical education programmes in the country has noted that science education in the country has suffered primarily due to lack of employment opportunities for all the science graduates. This trend affected science education in the country. Senior academics feel the combination of engineering and science degrees would definitely have an advantage with new avenues opened up for them. Like and MBA and a B.Tech combination, B.Sc. and B.Tech. combination will give more respectability to candidates though they have to spend a couple of years more in education. But they also say a different kind of syllabus can be prepared for such candidates given their background.