Forging The Future: AI As A Balancing Act, AICTE As A Catalyst For Change

The ‘AI’ in AICTE doesn’t stand for artificial intelligence, but it may as well, with the council steering AI into the hands of learners and teachers. 

AI in Indian education is a balancing act. The task is to expand access without widening the digital divide, introduce students to the latest AI tools without dampening their own critical thinking, foster innovation while developing guardrails, and reduce dependence on foreign technology without slowing progress.

The partnerships with OpenAI and Perplexity show promise, but also raise questions: Will students learn to think beyond what the Large Language Models (LLMs) tell them? What happens when these pilot licences expire? The council has thought these trains of thought through. 

T.G. Sitharam, Chairman of AICTE and former Director of Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, discusses the future of AI innovation with The Secretariat. 

Recently recognised in Stanford University's list of the top 2 per cent of scientists in the world for the fifth consecutive year, Sitharam doesn’t just discuss the technology, algorithms, and tools at play, but also the students, teachers, and policymakers at the core of India’s educational transformation. 

The Chairman provides insights into how AI is shaping the educational system and what lies ahead:

Q1: As India positions itself as a global player in AI, what role do you see AICTE playing in ensuring that our higher education system produces not just AI users, but original AI innovators at scale?

AICTE’s role is not just to prepare students to use AI, but to empower them to become original creators and innovators in this transformative field. Our vision is to ensure that India’s higher education ecosystem moves from being a consumer of technology to a global hub of AI innovation.

To achieve this, AICTE is systematically reshaping the academic and research landscape by:

• Integrating AI across disciplines: Through model curricula and well-defined learning outcomes, every engineer, manager, and designer will learn how to design AI-driven solutions relevant to their field.
• Empowering faculty and researchers: Large-scale training programmes and Faculty Development Programmes (FDPs) in emerging areas are building strong teaching and research capacity in AI and allied technologies.
• Fostering innovation ecosystems: By mandating R&D and Innovation Cells, IDEA Labs, and IIC nodes in colleges, we are embedding project-based learning, entrepreneurship, and industry collaboration into the student journey.
• Bridging academia with real-world opportunities: National-level programmes and partnerships provide access to advanced tools, computational resources, and mentorship, enabling students to transform promising ideas into impactful startups and cutting-edge research.

Through these initiatives, AICTE is laying the foundation for a vibrant pipeline of AI innovators who will not only contribute to India’s growth story but also position the nation as a leader in the global AI revolution.

Q2: With AI tools already in the hands of students, and slated to reach more with the recent MoU with OpenAI, how does the Council plan to create guardrails for responsible use? Do any exist so far? Given that LLMs are still prone to inaccuracies, how can we ensure that students continue to develop their own critical thinking skills, rather than relying too heavily on tools?

Declaring 2025 as the “Year of AI”, AICTE has taken proactive steps to not only accelerate the adoption of AI but also ensure its ethical, responsible, and meaningful use across higher education. With AI tools — especially LLMs — already in the hands of students, our responsibility is to provide guardrails that promote innovation while protecting academic integrity and nurturing critical thinking.

To achieve this, AICTE is working through a three-pronged framework — Policy, Pedagogy, and Practice:

1. Policy:

We have established a dedicated committee to oversee the adoption of AI and its ethical use in academia.

• Clear guidelines are being designed for transparency and accountability, such as mandatory AI-disclosure norms in research theses, dissertations, and academic outputs.
• Institutions are being encouraged to develop codes of conduct for AI use, aligned with global best practices and India’s national priorities.

2. Pedagogy:

• AI ethics, fairness, data provenance, and critical evaluation are being woven into model curricula and classroom instruction.
• Students are being trained to treat AI outputs not as unquestionable facts, but as first drafts that must be tested, verified, and improved upon.
• Courses are being redesigned to emphasize reasoning, problem-solving, and analytical skills so that technology supports — not substitutes — human thought.

3. Practice:

• As part of our MoU with OpenAI and similar collaborations, AICTE is ensuring that the rollout of AI tools is coupled with structured training modules for both students and faculty. These cover responsible prompt design, cross-verification of sources, hallucination detection, and reproducible evaluation methods.
• Pilot deployments of AI tools on campuses are being monitored closely, with feedback loops built in to refine usage guidelines.
• Institutions are being encouraged to conduct workshops and hackathons that focus on responsible AI development, so students become not just informed users but also critical evaluators and ethical creators.

Through this layered approach, AICTE’s goal is clear: reduce blind tool-dependence while strengthening human judgment, creativity, and critical inquiry. We want our students to harness AI as a partner in learning and innovation — while retaining the intellectual independence to question, refine, and go beyond what the machine provides.

Q3: Despite progress, AI adoption can highlight India’s existing digital divide, with well-resourced institutions in metros able to adapt quickly, while many rural and tier-2 or tier-3 colleges struggle with limited infrastructure. How is AICTE addressing these disparities so that students from low-tech institutions are not left behind in the AI push?

Bridging the digital divide is central to AICTE’s vision of inclusive AI adoption. We recognize that while premier institutions in metropolitan areas adapt quickly, many tier-2 and tier-3 colleges face challenges related to infrastructure, connectivity, and faculty readiness. To address this, AICTE has launched targeted initiatives to ensure that no student is left behind in the AI push.

• Project PRACTICE:

Our flagship reform programme, Project PRACTICE, focuses on uplifting 1,000 tier-2 and tier-3 engineering colleges with weak academic outcomes. Over the next three years, it will directly benefit around 20 lakh students and 10,000 faculty members through project-based learning, live industry projects, and advanced skills training.

• Research and Innovation Opportunities:

Complementing PRACTICE, AICTE’s ARI Portal connects students with research internships, while new R&D Cells and Climate Cells are being established across institutions to nurture innovation and sustainability at the grassroots.

• AI Access for All:

To democratise access to world-class AI tools, AICTE has forged landmark partnerships:

• With Perplexity AI, offering 4 million free Perplexity Pro licences to students nationwide, equipping them with cutting-edge AI-driven research and learning capabilities.
• With OpenAI, distributing 150,000 free ChatGPT Go licences for six months, prioritizing students and faculty in tier-2 and tier-3 cities.

• Ensuring Equity in Rollout:

Beyond licences, we are embedding equity into implementation by:

Providing faculty development and training through ATAL Academies and FDPs.

Q4: The current momentum is built on partnerships and licenses with private AI providers like Perplexity and OpenAI. What is AICTE’s plan for when these licenses expire? Will students and faculty continue to have access, and how will long-term affordability and sustainability be safeguarded?

AICTE views the current partnerships with Perplexity, OpenAI, and others as important entry points to democratise access to advanced AI tools. But we are equally focused on ensuring that access does not disappear once pilot licences expire, especially for students and faculty in tier-2 and tier-3 institutions.

To this end, we are pursuing a multi-track sustainability plan:

• Negotiated Continuity: We are already in discussions with providers to secure affordable renewals and long-term terms, with a special focus on underserved institutions.
• Diversification: AICTE is expanding its partnerships to avoid over-reliance on any single commercial provider, ensuring that multiple tools remain available to learners.
• Capacity Building & Open Models: We are strengthening institutional capacity by training faculty to use, evaluate, and deploy open-source AI models that can run on institutional infrastructure or government-supported cloud systems.
• National Alignment: Our strategy is closely tied to national programmes like IndiaAI, so that computer access, data availability, and skill-building are supported at the ecosystem level, not just through time-bound licences.

Through these measures, AICTE’s vision is to ensure that access to AI tools remains affordable, equitable, and sustainable in the long term, while steadily reducing dependency on temporary external arrangements.