DTU is focussing on research, gender diversity, NEP 2020: VC Yogesh Singh

by Abhay Anand

Delhi Technological University has given a fresh fillip to research and is working on ways to improve gender diversity on campus. Yogesh Singh, Vice-Chancellor, DTU spoke to Careers360 about his plans for the university, implementing the National Education Policy 2020 and outreach initiatives. Edited excerpts below.

Q. The NEP talks of converting specialised institutions into multi-disciplinary universities. Is DTU also planning to start programmes in other domains?

A. Yes, we are moving in that direction and we have started programmes in different areas of knowledge. We have started the programme in design and economics and have got good response from students. We are planning to introduce some more courses in the future. We are slowly moving in the direction of a research-driven university than just a teaching institution.

To incentivise research, we have instituted a scheme to provide financial assistance to researchers for publishing in leading journals. The fund will be available for research in three broad categories. If a researcher publishes in a top-rated journal, he will get Rs 5 lakh; if he publishes in category two, he will get Rs 1 lakh and if he publishes in a category-three journal, which are reasonably good, he will get Rs 50,000. We are hoping that this will encourage researchers. Though in the 80 years of our history, we have not been able to publish in category-one journal, we have been able to publish in other two categories and we hope to increase this number.

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Q. Is DTU also planning to introduce changes in its admission process for B.Tech and other courses?

A. Right now, we take admission through Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for undergraduate and through Undergraduate Common Entrance Examination for Design (UCEED) for design and for masters-level programmes, it is Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE). We would welcome it if there are some changes introduced in the JEE exam or admission process in line with the suggestions in the NEP.

Q. DTU has launched ‘Lab on Wheels’ to teach underprivileged kids and government school students. Could you elaborate on this and how students of DTU and schools benefit from it?

A. DTU started a scheme in 2017 under which our students were going to 10 government schools and teaching students science and mathematics. This gave a good result and many of these students got admission to top engineering institutions in the country. To scale this up further, we decided to give them hands-on training with 3D printers and other things and launched the ‘Lab on Wheels’ project. The Delhi Government is very enthusiastic about this project and has helped us and now this bus goes to schools and gives practical lab experience to students.

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Q. Do you plan to add more buses, find sponsors for this?

A. We would be happy to scale this up. Right now, it is funded by the university and Delhi Government is also willing to scale it up and we might increase it to reach more schools.

Q. What is the university planning to do about fees and placements this year? Last year there were reports of some DTU students being forced to pay fees, or else they were not allowed to sit for placements. How is the university planning to help students who might struggle to pay fees this year?

A. That was a rumour floated by some students. It never happened that we stopped a student from sitting for placements because he or she did not pay the fee. The placement process went smoothly and all our students got placed in good companies.

Q. Many of the IITs and other engineering institutions have come up with different innovative products in the past year or lockdown. Would you like to talk about such innovations by DTU students and faculty?

A. Our students and teachers are working on various innovations and we have published over 600 papers till now. We did not develop a product during the COVID-19 lockdown but we are doing a study on COVID and related impacts. Corporations are also funding our innovations and in one of the projects, we are working on a V (unmanned vehicle). We are working with drones and
improving it.

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Q. How is DTU working on improving gender diversity?

A. Being an engineering institution, we will have more male students and this cannot be changed. However, 18 percent of our students are female and we are planning to increase it to 30 percent. We give preference to the
single girl child at the time
of admission.

While there are some courses like design and others where the number of female students is equal to male or even more. We are working on further enhancing the gender diversity on our campus and hopefully, in few years we will see more girl students on the campus.

We are planning to introduce some more courses in the future. We are slowly moving in the direction of a research-driven university than just a teaching institution

Our students and teachers are working on various innovations and we have published over 600 papers till now. We did not develop a product during the COVID-19 lockdown but we are doing a study on COVID and related impacts.

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