Gujarat Technological University to offer engineering courses in Gujarati

30 seats each in Civil, Mechanical, Electronics and Computer Engineering in Gujarati medium from the academic session 2022-23 will be offered by the constituent college Gujarat Power Engineering and Research Institute (GPERI) in Mehsana.

GTU BTech Programme in Gujarati: The Gujarat Technological University (GTU) is all set to offer four undergraduate engineering programmes in Gujarati from this academic session. 30 seats each in Civil, Mechanical, Electronics and Computer Engineering in Gujarati medium from the academic session 2022-23 will be offered by the constituent college Gujarat Power Engineering and Research Institute (GPERI) in Mehsana.

Running since 2011, GTU has been offering these four undergraduate courses in English.

19 institutes commence engineering programmes in six regional last year

Regarding the decision to launch these engineering programmes in Gujarati, GTU Vice-Chancellor Professor Navin Sheth told Indian Express, “The decision has been taken as per National Education Policy 2020 reforms suggested to offer technical courses in the mother tongue. Last year, 19 institutes of 10 states started engineering programmes in six regional languages. We also tried to but due to one or the other reasons could not but this year we are starting this initiative from Mehsana.”

The decision was taken after a series of meeting and consultations with industry experts of each sector, which is still going on, added Professor Sheth.

“For instance, experts in civil engineering like builders were met and discussions were held. Similar meeting was held for mechanical engineering also.

Everyone said that they do not object to the idea of a candidate being hired by them holding an engineering degree in Gujarati. Rather, this will help the candidates as they are required to communicate with workers in mother tongue,” he added.

Opportunities for rural and tribal students

GTU claimed that this will offer opportunities for higher education to rural and tribal students and also increase state’s gross enrollment ratio of higher education. “Countries like Japan, China, Germany, Poland are offering programmes in their mother tongue only and students are studying these. But due to the 200 years of British rule, we are fixated on English. This should change,” said GTU Registrar K N Kher.

Diploma programmes also in Gujarati

GTU has also decided to offer diploma programmes in Gujarati medium. While the medium of instruction at polytechnic institutes is English, students are allowed to write their answer papers in Gujarati too. The translation work of textbooks and study material for first year is complete.

“A total of 20 textbooks, nine for degree and 11 for diploma have been translated out of which three are printed too. Work for translation of nearly 90 books for second year is under process,” Professor Sarika Srivastava, co-ordinator for translation of textbooks at GTU told this paper.

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