Delhi:The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has announced that all affiliated institutions will be offering 2 supernumerary seats to “gifted and talented” students. These seats will be offered to students with exceptional talent as per AICTE guidelines and scheme norms.
The objective behind the inception of two supernumerary seats is to empower gifted and talented students and enhance the innate potentials to the fullest of such students who have scored less or didn’t appear for the entrance test.
For the first time in country, AICTE has defined norms to identify such students. This noble initiative is in accordance with the spirit of National Education Policy (NEP) to foster and nurture the creativity, dynamism and innovation in Indian Education System.
The excessive weightage to grades and marks limits the creativity and innate talents among the students as they have to chase the marks through rote learning to secure admission in prestigious universities and institutions under societal and family pressure.
The idea is to provide a stimulating learning environment to a high potential learner for overall well-being and holistic development.
Such high potential students will be identified based on a set of specific criteria mentioned in the policy document available on AICTE website. Only Indian citizens are eligible for admission on supernumerary seats. AICTE will announce the list of institutions eligible for admitting students under this scheme based on pre-determined criteria and the ability of institutions to nurture gifted students eg: NIRF/ARIIA Ranking, NBA accreditation, past performance of the institution, intake capacity, etc.
The criteria for selection includes that students could have either won International/ National level prizes, published original research paper, winner of hackathons, receiving funding from government agencies for pursuing innovative projects, receiving funding from highly reputed global companies/MNCs/NGOs for pursuing innovative projects, holding patent, having a registered start-up (as per DPIIT norms) incubated at the leading incubators, developed an innovative project/ product recognized and reported by prestigious national or vernacular media, owner of Apps on Google/Apple/Windows stores or has launched or is in process of launching a technology-based innovative product in the market etc.
Candidates are required to submit a statement of purpose and 3 letters of recommendations on a proper letterhead from the appropriate authority clearly stating that he/she is a gifted child and is eligible for the supernumerary seat in AICTE affiliated colleges in accordance with the scheme guidelines of AICTE.
All the applications will undergo primary screening at the institute level to verify the document. Post document scrutiny, the candidate may need to appear for the interview in front of a panel of experts appointed by the institutions to ascertain their truly gifted nature and eligibility for admission.
Institutions admitting students under this scheme are committed to give complete tuition waiver. However, institutions may levy students’ fees for examination, hostel, library, transportation, laboratory, and other activity as per the prevailing norms.
Speaking about this unique scheme, Prof Anil D Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) said that, “The need to identify the creative and highly talented students to promote innovation was felt for a long time in drawing room discussions but no action was taken so far in this direction. In the absence of needful ecosystem, the valuable potential of the gifted students remained unnoticed, and hence appropriate nurturance of their talent has not happened. The NEP 2020 also emphasizes on skilling, honing, and encouraging creativity. Hence, it is imperative to set the criteria and system which would help in identifying the gifted students early and support them. Such students should not be insisted upon for grade XII or entrance criteria. In my vision, high-ability learners should be identified as early as possible and they should be provided with opportunities at our higher educational institutions, and some of these students shall make the country proud”.
Dr. Abhay Jere, Chief Innovation Officer, Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell said that “in conventional admission process in our country the undue advantage is given to the marks of students in national and state entrance examinations like Common University Entrance Test (CUET), JEE etc. due to which students get involved in the process of rote learning which kills the out of box thinking and creativity in the students. This needs to be changed and the actual talent, giftedness and passion of the students’ needs to be preserved and nurtured and should become the basis for admission. I believe that this remarkable step of AICTE is in right direction and this will act as precedence for other premiere institutes in our country”.
