St Xavier’s University will start BTech courses in four disciplines, offering a total of 240 seats, from next year.
Xavier School of Engineering will offer programmes in computer science and engineering, information technology, electronics and communication engineering and computer science and engineering — artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The private university in New Town has finalised the screening process to take in students for the BTech programmes.
Students will have to clear Bengal JEE and JEE-Mains or the entrance test conducted by the university to take admission in the BTech courses.
"A student has to apply directly on the university's website and give the rank of any of the above-mentioned entrance tests. Admission notification will be published on the website tentatively in March," said vice-chancellor Father Felix Raj.
The VC said that the BTech programmes focused on AI and machine learning, as these streams were in high demand.
"Bright students would be interested to study marquee disciplines like AI," said Father Felix Raj.
In January, chief minister Mamata Banerjee told vice-chancellors of various universities and college principals to "focus on" introducing subjects like AI, machine learning and data science, considering the demands of the time and age.
St Xavier's College, Park Street, plans to introduce an undergraduate programme in some of these new-age disciplines, principal Father Dominic Savio said.
Father Felix Raj had earlier spoken about the need to tune the curriculum and courses according to the preferences of the job market, stop the flight of students from Bengal and also attract bright students from outside the state.
The university is already offering a BSc course in statistics with data science from the 2025-26 academic year. This is being followed up with the launch of the BTech programmes in 2026-27.
"We can arrest the exodus of students only by introducing new-age courses," the vice-chancellor said.
In December 2023, the university held an open-house session at a Christmas gathering on the campus to discuss the "exodus of students from Bengal".
Ramakrishna Mission Residential College, Narendrapur, introduced AI and machine learning at the MSc level last year.
The state higher secondary council also introduced AI and data science in government and aided schools at the Plus-II level last year.