With cyber security threats increasing alarming and India woefully short of its own home-grown experts, the Centre has taken the ‘catch-them-young’ route to face the challenge.
The Centre has decided to introduce cyber and information technology as a subject at undergraduate and postgraduate levels across the country.
The HRD Ministry has asked All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and University Grant Commission (UGC) to introduce Cyber Security and Information Security (CS & IS) as a subject at university level and later on as a topic in secondary education at schools also.
“Being futuristic, the country in coming decades will thrive on cyber networks. The pace at which cyber and information technology is going on, we are slow in its forensic expertise. We depend on outsourcing even though we have an abundance of brain. By introducing this at secondary and higher education level, cyber security systems will not remain the domain of only experts in the next decades,” a official said.
HRD Ministry sources said that UGC has requested all universities to ensure that Cyber Security and Information Security is introduced as a subject as soon as possible.
During this academic session, 34 institutions across 15 States and a Union Territory have already taken the lead in introducing this as a subject for greater awareness of the citizens.
MoS HRD Shahshi Tharoor said based on the recommendations of the Task Force on the National Security System constituted on the direction of the Cabinet Committee on Security the introduction of this subject will be taken up at all the technical institutions and colleges across the country.
Following the recommendations of the Central Task Force, the AICTE has made provisions in the Approval Handbook that out of the two divisions allotted at the Post-Graduate and Post-Diploma levels, one has to be on Cyber Security or in Cyber Security related courses in the Computer/IT branches of Engineering/Technology.
Kerala and Madhya Pradesh have introduced the subject — Cyber Forensics and Information Security — in seven of its institutions followed by Andhra Pradesh in four colleges. Some the States among 15 of them are running it in the names of either Cyber Security or Cyber forensics.