Plugging gaps in engg education

A representative from a leading agro-machinery company of Punjab visits a premier IIT to identify 10 to 15 final year engineering students for placement. After skills and aptitude assessment, when he informs the boss that none was found up to the mark, he is advi-sed to select at least best of four.

That really happened some 10 years ago. There have been no serious attempts for improving the quality of engineering education since, thus further dimming the employment prospects of over 1.5 million engineers who leave the college precincts annually.

Further, despite commerce graduates fetching heftier package than engineering graduates with less years and less spending on education, engineering continues to be the stream of choice after class XII. Hence, engineering institutions, 90% of them in private sector, continue to proliferate.

With 65% of Indian population below 35 years of age constituting largest youth force in the world, our youth can become world technology leaders, deriving mileage from the existing and emerging domestic and international markets provided they acquire necessary skills.

Sadly, our academia in its cavalier posture suggest instead 3-4 fold increase in engineering in IITs and other reputed institutions as in US knowing well that we find hard to appoint 2,000-odd vacant faculty personnel in our IITs. Down at school level, at NCR Delhi, vocational schools that so well skilled the students, lie in utter neglect.

Our budding engineers are never taught what James A Mic-hener said: “Scientists dream about doing great things. Engineers do them.” The young are not acculturated or encouraged to set technologist or teacher as their goal. So, while one is yet to complete engineering, his next target is MBA in some reputed institution if a hefty package is unavailable, which parents and peers support.

The billion rupees issue is, how can one without commitment to technology, without putting one’s body and soul at his task, manufacture cell phones and TV sets that we import. The mission Skilling India can succeed only when the upcoming engineers opt for shop floor or teaching jobs vis-à-vis white collar positions.

India’s Metro rail legend Sreedharan deplores lack of passion among young engineers for the profession, with the best of lot moving abroad and the rest selling soaps and oils at home.
The commonest reason 50-80% of engineers are unemployable is the lack of skills that industry wants. What they are taught is hardly relevant to industry requirements. The syllabus centres more on learning the classic theories by rote and reproducing it in examinations.

Industrial exposure
To equip the engineering graduates with practical know-how, industrial exposure via attachments from two weeks to full semester length in three academic years in related fields is mandatory as per AICTE norms.

Alas, most students, colleges and the placement organisations treat it lightly making such exercise a travesty. A senior official at a known pharmaceutical company confided: “We don’t allow trainee student entry beyond reception desk; he should submit the application and collect the certificate from reception.”

In public sector units, the students are cursorily shown the equipment, get a “report” prepared that is duly signed by the company. The organisations continue such practice to serve dual purposes of providing obligatory apprenticeship to raw hands and add value to the company profile.

Teachers in private engineering institutions, hired to fetch grants or otherwise generate funds often, turn out to be poor mentors. Faculty of these colleges can be commonly witnessed outside venues of popular engineering entrance examinations, persuading the wards of candidates to believe their college as best alternative.

Many private colleges lower the minimum eligibility and tuition fee norms of the regulatory body so that no seats remain vacant. Basic infrastructure and necessary equipments are often in poor shape. There is overmuch attention on IITs and NITs and little effort to improve quality in majority of technical institutions in the private sector.

World over, behind all magnificent creations have been engineers at work. “The story of civilisation is, in a sense, the story of engineering – that long and arduous struggle to make the forces of nature work for man’s good” said science fiction author Lyon Sprague DeCamp.
Engineers improve the product, reduce costs and create new devices to empower all sections of society. Indian engineers have done wonders in Silicon Valley, they can sure do it at home. Of course, that requires love for profession and country.