Arts, Commerce students can't be architects, says Council of Architecture

In a case of total recall, the Council of Architecture returns to an old regulation making only science students eligible for architecture degrees

That choosing a career for HSC students is a confusing time will no longer be an excuse available to architecture aspirants. From 2018, students wishing to pursue a Bachelors in Architecture (B Arch) will need to think twice before choosing the Arts or Commerce stream in HSC. According to a new regulation issued by the Council of Architecture (COA), only students with a science background will be eligible for admission to architecture courses in the state. Even if an Arts or Commerce student has taken mathematics as an HSC subject, s/he will be ruled out.

The new regulation is in fact, a return to old norms. Prior to 2008, the COA had maintained that the eligibility for B Arch would be an HSC degree in science. In 2008, the COA opened up eligibility to other streams, as long as students had taken Math as a subject. Now, the COA has suddenly realised the importance of the PCM combination (Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics).

The principal of Sir JJ School of Architecture, Rajiv Mishra, explained the new regulation. “Soon after students from a non-science background started entering the job market, they were termed as ‘not equipped with enough technical knowledge’. The COA understands how this impacts students’ future and hence, the new regulation will be implemented from 2018, so students who are now in class 10 do not get affected.”

Nilesh Mahale, a commerce HSC student who was part of the 2009 B Arch batch, feels this is going to lead to confusion. “Though the relaxation was introduced in 2008, students learnt of it much later. Now suddenly, COA has done a U-turn. Moreover, those who have completed the course after coming from non-science backgrounds are in a fix. Because soon, employers will start questioning our degrees.”

Pradeep Sawant, a former Senate member at Mumbai University feels the return to an older regulation concerns the skewed student-seat ratio. Uday Gadakari, President of COA, was not available for comment.

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