Challenges before engineering education in India

Of late, the quality of education, particularly the higher and technical education in India, has attracted a lot of attention across the country. Failure of higher and technical education institutions in India to meet the global parameters of educational excellence can be testified with the simple fact that our institutions do not figure in the ranking lists of top educational institutions in the world. Along with the quality of education, low employability is the other verity which has raised serious concerns and necessitated the need for course correction in the domain of higher education in general and technical education in particular.

Technical Education is one of the most significant components of human resources development in a developing country like India as it creates the required manpower to facilitate the industrial, technical development of the country and consequently the quality of life of the population. In recognition of the importance of this sector, the founding fathers of Indian economic planning accorded utmost priority to this sector. There has been phenomenal growth in the field of technical education during the last seven decades of economic planning in India. At the dawn of independence, there were hardly 4 degree and 8 diploma institutions. There are at present more 3, 500 institutions, with intake capacity of around 15 lakhs. This phenomenal growth in the domain of technical education has raised certain crucial concerns for the policy makers and the stake holders. Some of these are ensuring quality of education, promoting the spirit of quest, to working out meaningful curriculum which is aligned with the requirements of job market.

The essential rationale of this paper is to look into the challenges before the technical education in India and ways to align it with employability, and creation of a knowledge society which is fitting with the needs of industry and developmental necessities of the country.

This paper is divided into three sections-first section sets the background by presenting an overview of engineering education in India since independence, second part enlists the main challenges in engineering education in India, third section makes an attempt to propose certain possible solutions so as to bring engineering education in sync with the imperatives of creating a knowledge society and ensure employability.