Average math score of first-year engineering students below 40%: AICTE | Education News,The Indian Express
A survey, undertaken to evaluate the quality of technical education and identify learning gaps affecting employment prospects of engineering graduates, found civil engineering students to be the “lowest performers” in “fundamental subjects”.
FIRST-YEAR engineering students, across major disciplines, struggle with mathematics more than any other core subject, according to a learning assessment survey carried out by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) — a finding which underlines the crisis plaguing engineering education in the country.
The survey, undertaken to evaluate the quality of technical education and identify learning gaps affecting employment prospects of engineering graduates, found civil engineering students to be the “lowest performers” in “fundamental subjects”.
The findings of the survey, in which 1.29 lakh students from 2,003 AICTE-approved institutes participated between last September and June 7 this year, indicate that the struggle with maths, which sets in at the foundational learning level in primary classes, remains unaddressed in the school education system for a vast majority of students.
The survey was carried out through a specially designed online test named PARAKH. Besides an aptitude test for all levels, first-year students were tested on physics, chemistry, maths, while second, third and fourth-year students were assessed on competency in their area of specialisation. For third and fourth-year students, the overall scores also took into account their performance in emerging areas such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT).
An analysis of the maths, physics and chemistry skill levels of 22,725 first-year students showed that “more emphasis is required for maths study in the engineering domain”, states the survey report. “Civil (engineering) is the lowest performing department across maths, physics and chemistry streams. More focus is required in the civil department in fundamental subjects,” it adds.
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