Edu-leaders

If you were born anytime after 1950, and if you were good at mathematics, chances were that your parents asked you to “consider” engineering as a career, at least  once. Like most teenagers you may have agreed to “try it out”. After all, there was, and still is, a certain academic elitism associated with the discipline. Or, your parents could have convinced you that it was the “best way to a job”. Students, who buckle under parental pressure or lack of awareness regarding options, end up in these engineering colleges by chance, and not by choice. Once in the technical school, students barely scrape through exams, as colleges struggle to motivate them.
During these four years of training, however, it’s up to the institution to turn students’ favour to engineering. But, are our institutions doing enough to ensure this? Apparently not. Apart from the high-paying software jobs, engineering as a career is not a favoured choice among graduates. In 1947 there were 36 institutions with
a student intake of 2,500 for undergraduate engineering education. The number rose to more than 1,600 institutions in 2008, with a student intake of around 6 lakh. However, the irony is that fewer students are opting for hard-core engineering courses and jobs today.

Show Me The Money
“Students don’t opt for engineering because they want to become engineers. They do it because this degree gives them a reasonable amount of flexibility to take up management, consulting, or even finance jobs, and earn big money,” says Anuj Agarwal who passed out from RV College of Engineering, Bengaluru, in 2004. “Only 10 batchmates of mine, out of 700, opted for a profession that involved hard-core engineering. Most opted for the software industry, or like me, got into managerial roles,” he adds. “Better pay packages in software and consulting is the main reason for this fading interest in hard-core engineering,” believes Dr D.P. Kothari, Vice Chancellor, VIT University. After all, today the real deal is information technology—and no student wishes to miss the IT bus. Moreover, India’s policies in the past decades have put all its eggs in the single basket of IT and software development. “Design and manufacturing, the two main purposes of engineering, have been sidelined. Over 80 percent of engineering programmes and students in our institutions are in IT and IT related programmes. Those in other disciplines migrate to software. Without a balanced national policy hardcore engineering will continue to languish,” points out former director, IIT Kanpur, R.C. Malhotra. However, software is not the only villain responsible for the current situation— even students of computer science are known to opt for lucrative consulting jobs after college. The issue is deeper and darker and there are several forces that have created a situation where we have a surplus of engineering graduates, and yet, not enough engineers.

Flaws In The System
“In the past it was the engineers who became the CEOs. Now it’s the finance guys or management honchos. Anyone with high aspirations would not want to continue with engineering. It’s only students who follow their heart and are not affected by societal pressure who opt for it,” says Siddharth Ranjan, an IIT Delhi 2001 pass-out, who went on to do an MBA with Temple University, Philadelphia. He is a manager now. Besides changes in the corporatesocietal structure, that might be difficult to reverse in the future, academics point out that there are other issues equally responsible for the current state of affairs.
CURRICULUM: The fast pace with which technology keeps changing is difficult to keep up in curriculum reviews. However, such reviews are necessary. While IITs have reviews every 10 years, institutions affiliated to AICTE are dependent on the statutory body for the reviews. “Lack of academic autonomy, which implies that all
affiliating institutions have to adopt a common curriculum framed by a university, minus faculty nod, has to be jettisoned. India needs a variety of  engineers—practitioners, managers, and researchers. They cannot be created from a common mould,” points out Malhotra. Engineering entrance exams do not
necessarily test a student’s aptitude. Rank in this exam binds a student to a stream. For instance, a student who has interest in electrical engineering might end up studying civil engineering if she does not perform well on the day of the tests. In such a case, a student ends up hating the system, and feels uninspired to take any interest in her course.

If the same student is given the option to choose electrical engineering as one of her minors, that could keep the magic alive. “Cross-disciplinary approach is the
way to help those who fail to get their choice subject,” admits K.C. Patra, dean (AR) and professor of civil engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela (Orissa). Courses such as humanities and social sciences (HSS) should also find a place in the syllabus. There is a rising belief that exposure to HSS will make students aware about the world. That, it may motivate them to innovate. As Dr Ashok Jhunjhunwala, professor, department of electrical engineering, IIT Madras, points out, “A youth of 17 needs to grow up. Courses in humanities is a way to help them grow.” To make students aware of the needs of the society, students should be asked to
move out from the campus and get involved in helping communities. However, K. Muralidhar, dean, Research and development, IIT Kanpur, says, “Inter and  multidisciplinary approaches are preached, but never practised. The problem is the lack of facilities and inadequate weightage (for such activities) in determining
the overall academic performance (grades) of the students.”
FACULTY: Shortage of quality faculty is an issue that is becoming bigger by the day in all disciplines. And, in engineering it is even more acute. A 2007 report—Engineering Education In India —by Rangan Banerjee and Vinayak P.Muley said, “The number of engineering doctorates awarded in India each year is about 1,000. This is less than 1 percent of the total engineering graduate degrees awarded each year.”

Interestingly, according to this report, in 1995, 1,204 Indian students got their science and engineering doctorates in the US. Most engineering students interested in higher studies travel overseas for doctorates—because there is a lack of quality faculty here. Then, they settle down as faculty outside India, and the vicious cycle continues. “Shortage of teachers leads to demotivation,” believes professor Patra of NIT, Rourkela. There is such a pressure as far as teaching resource is concerned, that often teachers are asked to teach subjects in which they have no specialisation. This is especially common in Tier-II and Tier-III colleges. “To attract great faculty,
the salary needs to be attractive. After the VIth Pay Commission recommendations, the situation may have improved to an extent, but it is still far from desirable,”
says D.P. Kothari.

HANDS ON TRAINING: S.S. Prabhu, professor of electrical engineering, in 2000 that in terms of time spent, lectures form 56.3 percent of the curriculum, whereas, considering relative weightage of time spent, lectures form 72 percent of the curriculum and laboratory only 12.2 percent. The situation has not changed much today. “Inadequate hands-on training is a major weakness in all institutes, including ours,” admits Muralidhar. He believes that tinkering and innovation labs, and workshops, that remain open 24/7 require financial resources and manpower—a scarcity in the country. Some believe institutions should consider setting up programmes such as the “Practice School” in BITS Pilani where students and faculty get involved with professional work (from the industry) for 7.5 months. Students should also be egged on to research more. Programmes such as “Summer Undergraduate Research Grant for Excellence”, run by IIT Kanpur, encourages undergraduates from all IITs, and other schools, take up focused projects during summer. Students from India visit overseas participating-institutions, while their foreign counterparts come to India.

INDUSTRY LINKAGES: New, cutting edge, technological trends, such as nanotechnology, biotechnology and ICT, need co-operation from the industry to be treated well. “Schools should maintain close relationship with the industry. This will ensure that an engineering student receives the opportunity to work on industry projects.  Recently, seven engineering colleges from Bengaluru and Hyderabad collaborated to prepare a payload for ISRO’s RH200 rocket space launch,” says Madan Lal, resident
of Institution of Engineers (India). Collaborating with the industry also helps in getting grants for projects. A small condition-free grant from Boeing, creation of a design lab by Autodesk has helped IIT Kanpur. “Ideally, industry should place resources at the industry and students’ disposal. Because the students are the future workers. This, however, has not happened. Students have not shown keenness to join the industry since it is hard work,” says Muralidhar.

Some Sunshine
Efforts to make engineering exciting will not help if students do not relax—and in most of the institutes they are constantly required to perform. Three Idiots was a
classic comment on engineering education. However, the film was based on the story of students at the IITs—which admits just 1 percent of graduates. The plight of the majority (76 percent), from private colleges, will perhaps take another movie to be explained. Nevertheless, there is a single issue that ails them all. Jhunjhunwala says, “We try to teach too much. We feel that the knowledge is required—it may be, but it needn’t be fed at the undergraduate level itself. Key is to teach less, and do
it well.” He also blames engineering courses for become too “uni-dimensional”. Connecting with students at their level is a better way to keep them interested rather than bombarding them with information. A stress-free, focused course could well be the beginning of getting engineering out of hard times.

(Names of students in the story have been changed on request)