The National Education Policy emphasised on the need to provide multidisciplinary courses, as result Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) have started to expand the courses offered in the field of humanities, among others.“Earlier the role of the humanities department was limited to offering elective courses to B.Tech students. It was felt that there is a need for well-trained human resources in humanities and social sciences who will play key roles in academia and industry. With an established department with highly qualified faculty drawn from top universities across the world, HSS department thus expanded itself to offer Master’s programmes,” Jyotirmaya Tripathy, professor, HoD, Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS), IIT Madras, told FEOnline. At present, IIT Madras has two programmes offered in HSS which includes development studies and english studies.
According to IIT Madras, so far more than 3,000 students appeared for the entrance test, however the number of seats available are just 55.
Moreover, these courses allow students to build skills such as critical thinking, and just go beyond numbers. According to Sukanya Sharma, professor, HoD, Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Guwahati, these courses help students to understand and address global challenges and make use of these opportunities from a multi-dimensional perspective.
Furthermore, with India going through a technology revolution, academicians believe that it is imperative to understand socio-cultural stratification. Unequal distribution of accessibility to technology may lead to digital divide and knowledge gap. “The concept of “societal embedding” of technology, indicates that whether a technology will be accepted by a society or not depends on the tradeoff between the enthusiasm about the benefits and concerns about potential risks. So, the solutions of the problems lie not only in the appropriate design and installation of technology, but it also requires societal embedding of the technology,” Shyamasree Dasgupta, associate professor, school of humanities and social sciences, IIT Mandi, said.
Interestingly, the demand for humanities lead courses are only high among students from urban cities and that too from the state of Kerala. “Communication barrier might be a key factor for this demographic division in IITs. More than degrees, skill sets should be prioritised for a student to pursue any course,” Jaison A Manjaly, professor, head of humanities and social science, IIT Gandhinagar, said.
Moreover, IIT Guwahati plans to start a masters’ programme in liberal arts from July 2022 in addition to flagship courses in development studies. IIT Gandhinagar, also plans to add humanities and social sciences courses at undergraduate level. According to Dasgupta, often these classes have a mix of students from basic science, engineering and humanities and social sciences.