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NITK’s ‘Bold and Balanced’ Curriculum Implemented for 2026 Batch, Life-Skills Take Centre-Stage

By Editor

Posted on September 4, 2026

NITK’s ‘Bold and Balanced’ Curriculum Implemented for 2026 Batch, Life-Skills Take Centre-Stage

Surathkal : A new ‘bold and balanced’ engineering curriculum has been implemented by the National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK), Surathkal, starting from the B.Tech. batch of 2026. The total number of credits have been reduced, while allowing interested students to pursue an additional Honours degree in their main discipline, or Minor degree in another department or inter-disciplinary field.

The total number of credits obtained from theory courses (taught inside classrooms) will now nearly equal the credits obtained from practical activities outside the classroom. Given that the weekly engagement hours for a practice credit are double that for a theory credit, the students will effectively spend 2/3rd of their time outside the classrooms. This includes lab work, life-skills activities, industry internship, R&D project, and business startup planning.

Professor Annappa, Dean (Academic Programs), who earlier headed the Career Development Centre, said: “The new curriculum was developed over the last three years with many meetings with industry and alumni. They expect engineering graduates to have the right combination of theoretical knowledge, practical skills, soft skills and mindset. The new curriculum allows students to explore different career pathways including industry, R&D and entrepreneurship.”

“Life-Skill Activities are an important part of the new curriculum”, as per Professor Govind Raj Mandela, Dean (Student Welfare). “These are divided into four types of activities: physical (sports), cultural (creative arts), technical (fabrication), and professional (communication). Each student is expected to spend at least two hours per week on each of the four types of activities, guided by expert coaches.”

Dr. Nagendrappa H., Associate Dean (Sports) said that a lot of planning went for ensuring that 1100+ students can simultaneously participate in various life-skill activities. Each activity has a faculty coordinator, supported by coaches and staff members. He added: “It was so pleasing to watch the students taking part in all the activities with great enthusiasm.” Dr. Geetha V., Associate Dean (Life-Skills) concurred: “All students were smiling and enjoying playing in the ground. They were so excited. I personally felt very happy. It was like they are making friendship with themselves.”

Director Prof. B. Ravi said: “Our goal is to prepare students for the AI Era, when the importance of technical knowledge may be exceeded by human values such as curiosity, creativity, intuition, emotion, empathy, ethics, context and judgement. We are betting on the new curriculum to produce well-rounded individuals and successful professionals contributing to Viksit Bharat by 2047.”