India still teaching a ‘Y2K syllabus’ in the AI age, says KBS Sidhu
Calls for engineering curriculum overhaul within one academic year, national AI reskilling mission
Babushahi Bureau
Chandigarh, October 11, 2026: India needs a time-bound national mission to reskill its software workforce for artificial intelligence (AI) and overhaul engineering curricula within one academic year, KBS Sidhu, former Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab, has said.
Sidhu has appealed to the Union Ministers of Electronics and Information Technology, Education, and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship to jointly launch a national reskilling programme with annual targets, clear accountability and independent assessment of training outcomes.
Criticising the pace of curriculum reform, Sidhu said many engineering colleges continued to teach a syllabus designed for an earlier era of software development.
“Much of what our engineering colleges teach is a Y2K syllabus. It trained a generation to fix the millennium bug, and it is still training them for that world,” he said.
India’s information technology industry employed 5.67 million people as of March 2025, according to the figures cited by Sidhu. He warned that AI coding agents were increasingly capable of performing tasks such as writing and testing code, putting pressure on conventional software development roles.
Sidhu referred to China’s announcement of a nationwide initiative to promote AI-adapted employment under its 2026–2030 employment plan. He argued that India needed a similarly defined programme with a designated implementing authority and measurable targets.
“Beijing has not solved the problem. It has named it, dated it and handed it to a ministry. We have schemes in plenty and no single action that is dated, counted and owned,” he said.
Five-point roadmap for AI readiness
Sidhu proposed five measures for the Union government: a joint national reskilling mission led by the Ministries of Electronics and Information Technology and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, with industry body Nasscom; portable reskilling credits for mid-career professionals; curriculum revision for engineering, Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA) and Master of Computer Applications (MCA) programmes within one academic year; examinations that assess students’ ability to evaluate AI-generated code; and retraining faculty before introducing the changes to students.
He stressed that AI adoption should not come at the cost of foundational knowledge. While reducing excessive emphasis on memorising programming syntax, he called for stronger teaching of programming fundamentals, algorithms and flowcharts.
“Fundamentals were once the route to writing code. They are now the means of auditing it,” he said.
Welcoming the introduction of Computational Thinking and AI in Classes III to VIII by the Central Board of Secondary Education from the current academic session, Sidhu said teacher preparedness remained a key challenge.
Sidhu proposes Punjab-level AI reskilling pilot
In a separate proposal, Sidhu urged Punjab to begin AI reskilling without waiting for a national curriculum overhaul.
He suggested retraining government-school computer teachers through the Punjab ICT Education Society (PICTES), introducing AI courses for government employees through the Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration (MGSIPA), and revising curricula through the state’s technical universities and colleges.
He also proposed a pilot programme in Mohali for working software professionals in collaboration with industry. “No reform outruns its trainers. Retrain the faculty before the students,” Sidhu said, adding that Punjab already had the institutions needed to begin the process.
Sidhu, a 1984-batch IAS officer who retired as Special Chief Secretary in July 2021, is the founder-editor of The KBS Chronicle.
His detailed article, titled Beijing Reskills, Bengaluru Still Crams Java, is available at The KBS Chronicle.