Engineering Education in India: Some Suggestions from a 'Practising Engineer'

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I was born in Independent India. India happened to be one of the least developed countries in the world in those days, but with a civilization and culture that many countries did not have. The majority of Indians used to be illiterate, but there were a number of nations which were much backward than India as far as literacy was concerned. Indian population also used to be much less at about 30 % of what it is now. 

But the new democratic republic of India also inherited a rich legacy of infrastructure and systems from its predecessors as far as education is concerned. But over the years, while almost all the nations of the world had achieved a literacy rate above 90%, India failed miserably in that front. Education has become a matter of much controversy in India. Much experimentation has taken place in this front. In the special area of engineering of education, the Indian education experiments have resulted in unprecedented growths, surpassing all other areas, resulting in a situation of extreme imbalance. 

When I was a student of engineering way back in the Nineteen Seventies, there were only six  engineering colleges in my home state Kerala. Out of this three were owned by the Central/state governments and the rest three by religious societies- one Hindu, one Muslim and one Christian. Another technological university by the government was being planned.

The total intake of engineering students in to all these colleges should have been not more than one thousand. The total passouts of engineers from these at that time should have been of the order of 600-700 per annum.

The method of admission was based on the percentage marks obtained for Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics at the higher secondary school (at that time Pre-Degree Course which used to be held by the University level) examination. With a PCM percentage a bit above 85, I remember getting general quota admission call letters from all colleges and for all courses !

I remember writing the admission tests of the IITs and the Roorkee University (now IIT-R) but not succeeding. To be frank, we in the rural settings never imagined that there could be separate coaching classes for such tests! Ofcourse IIT test coachings had been in existence at that time also, but mostly in the cities!

So it was my dream to get into an IIT which later I did at my PG level.

While entering into engineering I had pretty high aspirations about my future engineering education. I was going to learn the secrets of modern development and progress. So was my thinking!

To be very honest, I found the engineering education for most part, devised in such a way that it suppresses all earnest creativity and eagerness for invention, research or even keenness for overall competency development.

The reason for this was mainly due to the incompetency of most of the faculty members to relate theory and practice. Most engineering college faculty members never had any actual industrial experience! They entered academic profession straight away from their institutes, doing a BTech, MTech or PhD and what they knew was mostly what was mugged up from the literature or text books!

There were exceptions. For example, the University of Roorkee at that time had a few faculty members who had some past industrial experience. Those professors and teachers were far more superior in their teaching methods and theirs were the lectures that really inspired and motivated us.

I always used to wonder why these engineering colleges and institutes have pretty low connection with the industry. Why cann't they induct more experienced engineers from the industry to the teaching side?

One of the first job I got after my studies was in teaching side. Though I had an inclination towards teaching, I declined that just not to become an inexperienced text book teacher of engineering to the youngsters! At that time I thought of getting into teaching after some years of industrial experience!

But, in India, this is not an easy thing. At least that is what I learnt later.

Academy and industry work in air tight compartments. The governments, universities and their rule makers have created such a scenario that it is difficult for engineering colleges to appoint experienced engineers from the industry as teaching staff. Movement of engineer academicians to the industry is also not very common, as the pure line engineering academicians lack real time engineering experience!

The reasons for such a scenario are many. But the prime reason is the absurd stipulation that the universities and the authorities have made with regard to the minimum qualifications for teaching. For a professor's post in engineering they stipulate a minimum PG or PhD level education in engineering regardless of the experience. Whereas it is common knowledge that most of the working engineers in the industry at any level have only a degree in engineering. They have gained years of actual practical knowledge in engineering whether it is in research, design, project implementation, operation, maintenance, technical management, etc after their degree level education. For the experienced engineers, a later day college education to get a PG or PhD does not add much value, unless it is for some specific purpose to gain more theoritical knowledge! 

Good technocrats and engineering managers who have only a degree in engineering, but years of practical experience have better pay and facilities that they normally should not bother to switch their career to teaching side. But even those who have an inclination and liking to teaching and those who have gained years of working experience, who think of sharing their industrial knowledge to the younger generations, are restrained to do so due to such illogical rules and stipulations.

The governments, for good or bad, have allowed mushrooming of engineering colleges in the past decade. There are hundreds of engineering colleges in every state now, mostly contolled by private societies and trusts. Since they are allowed to take a fee much larger than they actually need to run their institutions, most of them have fine infrastructure, much better than even the national level IITs. But what they really lack is experienced teachers. Since most of these colleges have students having academic skills not comparable to those students who get into the firstline institutes, they infact need teachers and guides who ought to be more matured and seasoned with more practical knowledge than textbook knowledge!

Most of these colleges have been managing with a few retired professors with PhDs at senior positions for quite some time now. The remaining majority comprises of graduates and post-graduates straight from the colleges, many of them later acquiring their research degrees under the so-called Quality Improvement Programmes (QIP). As it was in our times, the situation remains the same. The majority engineering college teachers are without any real engineering experience other than teaching ! So the legacy of Indian engineering education continues in the same manner as it used to be or even worse without any improvements as regard to industry-institute interactions!

There is not effort to bench mark the Indian engineering education with that of the developed nations. It should be worth recalling the fact that in the west, the most advanced scientific and engineering developments take place in the engineering and technological universities and institutes! What happens in India on the other hand at the best could be publication of research papers without any 'actual' or worthwhile research!  

I remember some management persons connected to some of the private engineering colleges admitting the sorry state of affairs in this context. Unfortunately there is no forum for them to raise their feelings and opinions. The policy makers in engineering education is the body called AICTE, the individual members of which are influential and 'well-connected' academicians who care little for others' views and voices ! Regrettably the politicians and the bureaucrats are novices in this front having no expertise to develop their own independent decisions without advice from such bodies!

Unfortunately, we Indians do not even try to make use of the experienced NRIs having excellent experience in many fields connected with engineering and technology in the developed nations. We find it to our own vested advantage to work or behave as 'frogs in the well'!

On the other hand the scenario in the industry is also not very encouraging.

The HR departments of most of the industries are filled with novices with no experience in the selection of appropriately experienced technical people. How can a non technical HR man guage the experience or expertise that  is most suited for a technical job? All they do is mechanical assessment, which keeps the real experts out of bay, making their business suffer pretty much if they happen to do business in technically oriented things! Here too the business leaders go by the advice of someone below, not necessarily someone who knows the things well.

Why India does not keep pace with the rest of the world is because of 'small' things like this.

It is high time that both government and industry think and device of ways by which movement of engineers from industry to academics and vice versa is facilitated without much hurdles. Requirements of PG/PhD should be waived off for experienced engineers who are otherwise suited for teaching. Similarly, industry leaders should think of inducting engineers with teaching and research experience to appropriate levels in the industry.

In short, there should be a situation facilitating easier movement of engineers from both sides!

Such things will greatly help industry-academy interactions in actuality and help the young aspiring engineering students to get more exposure to the realities of engineering profession while in the colleges itself to decide upon their future career planning wisely. Industry would benefit.

The country would also, no doubt benefit.

But who is there to listen to these ?

You may like to see the following blogs too in this context:

 

     The Politics and Business of the Indian Education System !

       Strategy They Adopted to Keep A Big Nation Humbled (Story)

      Chemical Engineering : A Launch that Failed to get Momentum after Take Off !

      EPC Services and Engineering Design Groups in India- Is there any HR crunch ?

     Professional Development of Engineers in India: Do We Need to Do Something ?

      Science, Research and Conclusions: It Can Happen Like this Too !

     School Education: An Open Suggestion to the Government !

      Treasures,Talents and the PPM Process !