Engineering Education at Cross Roads … Change or Perish is the new buzzword..III

An Engineer is a creator who makes the life of mankind comfortable and often luxurious. It’s a challenging career which helps to unleash full potential of a person. Creativity, logic , out of the box thinking are some of the buzz words that defines an  Engineer.

Engineering education got its importance in 80’s all out of need for contributing to the development of our country. Earlier its only Science and Medical education were in demand by students. Its more due to lakh of awareness than interest. But with awareness it gained important and become only second and often even first choice of students after their 10+2 education with science as background. With this 1985 on wards there was a mushrooming of Engineering Educational Institutes most of them started only with commercial interest in the mind and very few with genuine  interest to give quality technical education to pupils. And this trend continues till today.

The boom of Information technology field in early 90’s with advent of powerful computers and need for automation of every aspect of our life , the software industry soared very high and was about to touch the sky also helped this mushrooming of Engineering Institutes. In fact IT industry created a parallel economy in our country increasing IT employees earning and spending power soaring high which was un heard of earlier. This booming economy rubbed off  to other fields also like real estate , automobile industries and gadget making electronic industry. The tele-communication revolution only helped this boom and creating a huge demand for Engineers. The money in flow in dollars due to out sourcing only added to this demand.

But the problem started  when supply stared exceeding demand and with 2002 attack on world trade center ( 09/11 as it is popularly known ) , the American market crashed and that started the problem in Indian Job Market which over dependent on American out sourcing.

Also the mushrooming of Engineering Institutes resulted into decrease in quality of education. AICTE and Technical universities complacent approach to wards quality and supporting infrastructure checking is another reason for decreasing quality.

Today according to many surveys conducted by many organization including NASCOM only 10% of students who graduate in various universities and institutions are employable ( i.e. posses required skills to join and survive in industries ). Earlier Industries has enough funds to further train them and absorb them. But now due to reduced margins resulted in lack of extra funds to train their employees …Employees are employing only those candidates who required necessary skill sets and ready to be productive from day one.

So problem is not about employment , but is of employability which the Engineering Institutes are failing to provide.

That’s the reason Indian Government thinks of bringing all Engineering Institutes under Skill development Department. Less theory and more stress on practical’s including hands on training is the present requirement. VTU is also gearing up in this direction and has released a new curriculum  for feed back to all its affiliated institutes and if every thing goes well , it intends to implement it from next year.

OUTCOME BASED Education model which stresses on skill based education is another step which all Engineering institutes should adopt irrespective of they are aiming for NBA accreditation or not ( As it needs adequate infrastructure support and other things. ) to cater to the industries.

Adopt to the change or perish is the new buzzword in Technical education including Polytechnic.  

I am proud to announce that our Tontadarya College Of Engineering , Gadag (TCE, Gadag )…has already moving to adopt to this change and from next academic year the things will change drastically for better.

For any guidance / motivation to staff   in this direction contact me :

Prof. Shivayogi Patil (Civil Engineering Department )

TCE, Gadag (mobile : 9480370941)