TOWARDS A WORLD-CLASS
TECHNICAL WORKFORCE
Manoj
Pandey*
A number of major
steps have been taken in the recent years to expand literacy.
They include the ambitious Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the 86th
constitutional amendment to make education a fundamental right.
Similarly, highly effective measures have also been taken relating
to reforms and expansion in the area of technical education.
Technical education
has seen a quantum jump in terms of number of institutions and
intake of students. As compared to 562 degree-level technical
institutes five years back, there are about 1200 engineering colleges
at present. While in 1998 the total intake of engineering institutions
was 1.3 lakh, it has grown to 3.6 lakh in 2003. The last couple
of years have seen the establishment of one Indian Institute ofTechnology
(IIT, Roorkee) the Indian Institute of Information Technology
(Allahabad) and the Indian Institute of Information Technology
and Management (Gwalior). A new IIT is coming up at Guwahati.
Conscious that
mindless expansion of technical education without concern for
quality would only lead to ill-educated technical workforce misfit
in the present age of competition, special emphasis has been given
to upgradation of quality of technical education at all levels.
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have emerged among
the best institutions in the world in the area of technical education.
To make them more professional and forward-looking they have been
given greater operational freedom. Their functioning mechanism
has been so modified as to provide greater focus to the outcome.
Since the establishment of a new IIT is a highly costly affair,
a new group of institutions, the National Institutes of Technology
(NITs), have been created by upgrading the existing regional engineering
colleges (RECs)giving them full autonomy in academic maters. Out
of 17 RECs , 14 have so far been converted into NITs. At present
about 23,000 seats are available in the IITs and by creation of
NITs, 25,000 more seats have become available in the top technical
institutes.
The All-India
Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has made accreditation
of technical colleges mandatory so that all technical institutions
maintain a proper standard of education.
An ambitious
programme called the Technical Education and Quality Improvement
Programme (TEQIP) has been launched to upgrade the standard of
teaching in technical colleges throughout the country. In its
first phase which covers about 20 well-performing engineering
institutions and 50 other colleges in 6 States, upgradation of
infrastructure and human resources is being undertaken with an
investment of Rs. 1,550 crore. This will help about 10,000 students
every year and lead to long-term upgradation of teaching infrastructure
and manpower.
Constant updation
of knowledge is imperative for maintaining high quality of research
and teaching in technical areas. Therefore, a scheme has been
started to subscribe to nearly 3650 journals and database on consortium
basis and make them available to engineering colleges and other
institutions.
Realising that
top quality education is not available to students of a large
number of engineering colleges, a television channel exclusively
devoted to technical education has been started on January 26,
2003. The channel telecasts the lectures imparted in the IITs
so that students of other institutes can make use of them at no
cost. As a new initiative by the Ministry of Human Resource Development,
a series of CDs and books prepared by experts will also be available
in the market at nominal rates within a year. This will reduce
the enormous burden the students have to bear on purchase of study
material.
Among other reforms
initiated by the Central Government in the field of higher technical
education, the systematization of entrance examination to technology
institutes is specially important as it touches the lives of lakhs
of engineering aspirants and their families. The Joint Entrance
Examination (JEE) for IITs has been shifted to April now so that
it does not clash with board examinations. It was also realized
that though IIT-JEE has a high credibility, students do not know
their marks and are liable to be misled by coaching firms that
have mushroomed over the years. So, from this year, students appearing
in IIT-JEE have got sample question papers and will also get marks
sheets. This transparency will help students while adding to the
credibility of the entrance examination further. Till two years
back, students had to take a number of examinations to try their
luck in different professional colleges. By bringing together
over a hundred institutes, the Central Board of Secondary Education
(CBSE) has started an All India Engineering Examination (AIEEE)
last year for about 10,000 seats.
India is known
the world over for its enormous technical manpower. Yet there
is a need to constantly adapt technical education to the changing
technological and financial scenario and also to make it competitive
in terms of quality. The thrust provided to technical education
in the recent years, both for expansion and towards improving
quality, will generate a technical workforce that will make India
compete well in the technology- driven world. (PIB Features)
*DPR,
PIB, New Delhi.
