Engineering: issues, challenges and opportunities for development ...

ENGINEERING: ISSUES CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEVELOPMENTAn engineering student in university in China has a four-yeareducation. Students spend two years on basic courses such asmathematics, physics, chemistry, humanities, social sciencesand so on, eighteen months on the fundamental courses oftheir major, and another six months on a practical project. Themajority of the time, students learn from teachers in the classroomwith some experimentation in the laboratory, so thathave very little opportunity to practice their abilities, either inscientific research or hands-on projects. In addition, the coverageof engineering is very specialized. A university engineeringgraduate only possesses a small portion of the knowledgeneeded in real-world engineering.Widely accepted proposals for the reform of engineering educationin China include:■ Widening engineering education to properly cover practicalengineering.■ Updating the structure of the curriculum so that it includesthe latest knowledge.■■Reforming the teaching paradigm with more interactionbetween the teacher and the student.Encouraging students to raise more questions inside andoutside the classroom.■ Strengthening the research and development training inuniversity labs.■■■Providing more opportunities for students to gain experiencein industry.Recruiting new faculty members with more practical experiencein engineering.Establishing closer links between universities and business.IndiaPrem Shanker Goel and Arvind K. PoothiaOver the past few years, India has been registering 8 per centto 9 per cent GDP growth, largely due to growth in informationtechnology (IT), IT-enabled services and core industrialoutput. This can be correlated with the increased availabilityof a talent pool, which is young and confident. From being animporter of several goods and the recipient of aid, India hasnow become an exporter of finished goods and services andhas offered aid to less developed countries. Globalization hasopened up opportunities for India, such as outsourcing of ITand engineering services into the country.There are enhanced expectations from engineering education.Global competitiveness places significant demands on innovationand entrepreneurship, and international accreditationdemands new perspectives on engineering education, requiringtimely and appropriate responses from the Indian engineeringeducation system.Technology denial regimes demand innovation in strategic sectorsand India has performed well in developing several criticaltechnologies: in space, defence and nuclear energy. Denialof technologies is not confined to the military sector. Thereis a new urgency towards technology development by Indianindustry with the recognition that ‘purchasable technology’is out of date, and contemporary technology is not purchasable.Managing innovation for the developing world environmentmust take into account special needs and circumstances,such as: appropriateness to local needs, resources and culture;easy-to-use and affordable technology; employment gaps andopportunities, and so on.Several higher technological institutions, such as the thirteenIndian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the twenty NationalInstitutes of Technology (NITs), have established centres forinnovation, entrepreneurship and incubation. Among theirkey terms of reference are phases such as ‘add commercialvalue to academic knowledge’ and ‘market the intellectualand infrastructure resources for national development.’The IITs are distributed across the country and representhigher technological institutes, declared as institutions ofnational importance. Admission to the IITs is made througha national examination held simultaneously at a multitude ofcentres across the country. About 300,000 students competein this exam for 4,000 places, resulting in a selectivity of 1in 75.The Indian engineering education system is characterized by:the preponderance of private (self-financing) colleges about80 per cent of all colleges; acute faculty shortages, a deficit ofabout 40,000 places; acute shortages of PhDs, about 15,000;acute shortages of MTech graduates, about 30,000; meagreproduction of PhDs; and an internal brain drain (particularlyengineering graduates seeking employment outside the engineeringprofession into areas such as IT and management).Quality assurance in engineering education is achieved throughthe National Board of Accreditation, which is currently seekingmembership of the Washington Accord.Industry has been proactive in establishing collaborationwith academia to enhance graduates’ skills and employability.Employability enhancement and talent managementare assuming significant importance in dealing with youngengineers, whose employment preparedness and expectationsare becoming serious problems. Employers are quite222