CHALLENGES OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION
IN INDIA
India with its vast infrastructure in Technical education has created a niche
advantage in the globalized economic environment for the growth of its economy
and national development. The growth of technical education in the last 25 years
has been phenomenal as can be seen from the increase in number of institutions
from 158 in 1980 to 1346 in 2005 and like wise increase in intake at engineering
degree level from 28,500 to 4,52,260 during the same period. The multifold increase
in intake and increase in number of institutions has already caused significant
pressure on the quality of educations of engineering and technology. The main
challenges the technical education has to respond are the challenge of:
· cultivating science in an engineering institution
environment to revitalize the science base of modern engineering
· creating technology savvy campuses
· using Information Communication Technology (ICT) to enhance teaching
effectiveness as also to create a knowledge centric learning environment
· creating a research culture at all levels including the undergraduate
institutions
· harnessing the power of mind and utilizing the power connectivity to
nurture talent of engineering students
· building faculty competence for improved teaching and creative research
· creating structures and mechanisms for Knowledge and Innovation Management
· transforming engineering institutions into Knowledge Enterprises
· providing an optimal mix of knowledge, skills and competencies to be
addressed by innovating existing curriculum which is presently rigid and is
heavily oriented towards core specialties
· Autonomy
The Indian Engineering education system is capable of greeting the above challenges.
All it requires that the management of the institution and the members of faculty
are inspired and motivated to create a technology savvy environment to leverage
advantage of technology in education and create institutional systems for quality
assurance at all levels. The Technical Education System has to undergo introspection
on its weakness and take active steps to improve the quality of the educational
processes.
· Effective Autonomy to Engineering Institutions to upgrade curricula
at regular intervals to keep abreast of developments in technology as well as
pedagogy.
· Effective Functional and Administrative Autonomy coupled with Accountability
· Shift emphasis from teaching to learning and encourage students-centric
learning strategies and development of self learning tools
· Develop continuous teacher competence up gradation mechanism
· Put emphasis on obsolesce removal of infrastructure as well as teaching/learning
evaluation process
· Strong interface with Industry i.e building Industry Institute partnership
· Create opportunities for student exchange with other countries, transfer
of credits, appreciating cultural diversity, methods of working, engineering
standards, work ethics, discipline, etc to enable them in later professional
life to adjust to external environment easily.
Establish and strengthen quality assurance cell for collecting student and peer
review of teachers performance, acting and initiating remedial measures for
improvement based on these reviews and on external audit of the educational
processes.