IIT Delhi overhauls curriculum after 12 years to cut student load, add industry-relevant skills

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, has overhauled its curriculum for the first time in 12 years, citing concerns over student workload and the evolving needs of industry as key reasons behind the extensive reform. The last curriculum revision took place in 2013.

IIT Delhi Director Rangan Banerjee said to PTI, "The industry demands are rapidly changing, there is a whole new emergence of AI and focus on sustainability. The exercise for this revamp began in 2022. Over the last few years, we have taken extensive stakeholder feedback. We have been talking to our alumni, students... our faculty are involved with industry and society. We have tried to incorporate flexibility to make the curriculum more exciting for students."

“The concern about the burden on students was definitely one of the factors which guided our curriculum revamp. We have restricted the number of core credits per semester and especially in the first two semesters, when the first-year students join, they will have a relatively reduced load. We have also tried to see that in the first year, the class sizes are smaller,” he added further.

Also Read: IIT Madras launches new academic programmes, special admission categories; check details

To improve student-faculty interaction, the intake for first-year classes has been halved to 150 from 300 per class. “We have also focused on learning by doing. So this has been on our minds to reduce the stress but we also want to ensure that we have elements of rigour and choice in our curriculum and then try to minimise the load,” he added.

Among the notable additions to the curriculum is an honours programme as an optional add-on to the BTech degree. Undergraduate students will now be able to apply for an MTech programme at the end of their third year, enabling them to complete both bachelor's and master's degrees within five years.

Read More: IIT Kanpur releases JEE Advanced 2025 provisional answer key; objection window open till...

“One of the important changes that has been introduced in the curriculum is in programming education by integrating AI-based code generators into the introductory course on programming. Students from all BTech streams will have to undergo mandatory training on how to use AI responsibly and ethically to future-proof themselves,” Banerjee told PTI.

He added, “Similarly, each graduate will have some training in sustainability. We are providing more opportunities for hands-on learning, internships and teamwork, so that our graduates will be more future-ready and will be able to actually make an impact in India and the world.”

The 15-member curriculum committee consulted the academic models of eight reputed institutions while designing the new framework. These included Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge University, Harvey Mudd College, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and Indian counterparts such as IIT Bombay, IIT Gandhinagar, and IIT Hyderabad.