5-month syllabus in a month at NDA

Teaching at NDA is divided into cycles of 13 days each. The syllabus of a term needs to be completed in eight cycles. Given that the present term started in January,the NDA has already taught cadets BE subjects for five cycles. The whole old BSc syllabus for the term will thus be completed in 39 days.

In a written reply to this paper on Wednesday,the NDA had said the basic structure BsC and BE is similar with regard to core subjects,common service subjects,languages,foundation courses.

A look at the syllabi shows that BE subjects included engineering mathematics,IT,engineering physics,engineering chemistry along with specialization subjects such as workshop engineering,military political science,military geography,military history. It did not match the BSc syllabus that had mathematics,physics,chemistry,basic engineering,library science,computer science,history and political science to name a few. Library science in BSc was not included in BE.

Foundation courses given 77 periods in BSc were not there in the BE syllabus. The periods allotted to subjects irrespective of commonness in names also pointed out a difference. Chemistry for instance in BSc was allotted 98 periods,while engineering chemistry of BE needed 77.

“There is a huge difference. Further,when cadets have never seen the old subjects for the first/ second term,how will they understand what is taught in the third term,that too when exams are a month-and-a-half away?” said an NDA official. It also remains to be seen as to how these subjects would be reflected in the marklist of the past term for which cadets appeared as BE students.