KARACHI, Nov 11: The recommendations made by the National Curriculum Revision Committee on Electronics, formed by defunct University Grants Commission (UGC), have been ignored by the most of varsities in the country, which may result in shortage of qualified professionals in the important fields like Electronics.
The committee had recommended immediate establishment of electronics departments at all general and engineering varsities in the public sector through a presidential ordinance.
Unfortunately, only a few public sector engineering varsities in the country offer the Bachelor of Engineering (BE) and postgraduate studies in electronics, apart from imparting engineering education related to physics or applied physics.
Similarly, except for a few private engineering varsities, which offer degree courses in the subject, electronics is generally considered as a subject to be imparted at diploma-level studies only.
The NCRC proposed a four-year professional degree programme in electronics, for general as well as engineering varsities in the country, in line with their respective statutes and requirements.
According to an official of the Higher Education Commission (HEC), the body has already finalized a set of courses for the four-year programme, to enable the holders of the proposed degree to qualify for engineering jobs in government departments.
He informed that currently, only the University of Peshawar was offering Electronics as an elective subject at the BSc level, while the University of Karachi and Quaid-i-Azam University offered two-year MSc degree courses, with specialization in the same subject. University of Sindh also offered a four-year programme in the discipline, leading to a Masters degree, he added.
The KU has recently renamed its Department of Applied Physics as Institute of Electronics, as per recommendations of the NCRC.
The official maintained that the higher educational authorities were cognizant of the fact that a strong indigenous resource base in electronics was essential for the country.
“Security and defence of the country would remain vulnerable without attaining excellence in the filed,” he said, and added the IT infrastructure would also remain fragile and dreams of rapid industrial development would never be realized without a large number of well-equipped and competent electronics professionals.
According to him, the HEC was planning to take up the issue again to overcome shortage of trained electronics professionals at all levels, ie academic, engineering and technical, within the next few years.
Electronics should also be declared as a professional subject such as Computer Sciences and Information Technology, he said.
“HEC members strongly feel that Electronics should be introduced as a subject at the BSc level, such as Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Computer Science, in all the provinces of the country,” he added.—PPI