One-Year Master’s Programme For Indian Students In Line With NEP Designed In US; Know Benefits

By EB Bureau On Aug 17, 2023

New Delhi: Indian students will be able to pursue a one-year professional master’s degree with an industrial specialisation in American universities because the United States (US) State Department has curated an educational programme that is in line with India’s New Education Policy (NEP).

With the State Department acting as a facilitator, over 20 American and 25 Indian universities are in discussion to take advantage of the initiative.

Once the course is completed, students will be eligible to stay in the US for up to three years, as per current visa rules. The move is intended to allow them to gain work experience in the industry and repay student loans.

The programme has been developed by Akhilesh Lakhtakia, a Jefferson Science Fellow at the State Department’s South and Central Asia (SCA) bureau. Lakhtakia was roped in from Penn State University where he was serving as a professor of engineering science and mechanics to study India’s NEP. The State Department wanted him to come up with a programme that is beneficial to the students, governments as well universities of the two countries.

The courses are currently confined to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines and will start beginning the fall semester of 2024. Specialised courses on wireless technology, artificial intelligence (AI) applications, quantum engineering, 5G and 7G communication systems, semiconductor processing, nano-technology, and photonics among others are currently being offered.

“What was proposed was very much to my liking. It is student-centred, flexible, multidisciplinary, futuristic, and international. If this can be implemented, it will simply revolutionise school and higher education,” Lakhtakia was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.

“The State Department brought me in to understand how, in line with NEP, the two countries can work together. The objective was to create a win-win, but in my mind, my client was the Indian student,” he added.

According to Lakhtakia, “A usual master’s degree in the US is for two years. But we thought that over 12 months, students can get a master’s degree with 30 credits. The idea is also to have a strong experimental component so that graduates when they go into industry, can become effective fairly quickly.”