Strategy for Training and Development of Engineering Manpower in Indian Context

摘要

The engineering education in India is delivered at unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled level. Unskilled and semi-skilled engineers include plumber, technician, electrician, instrument mechanic, X-ray operator, surveyor, draughtsman etc. At skilled level, the engineers are mostly undergraduates in varied fields such as electronics, telecommunications, computer, civil etc. Currently, the skilled level engineering education is being imparted through government, semi-government and private funded institutions. The prominent ones include IITs, NITs, PEC, VIT, BIT etc. There are more than 2000 technical institutes offering more than 750000 seats for undergraduate engineering career. However, this number itself is not sufficient for a populated country like India. Nevertheless, the mushrooming of engineering institutes with reduced number of technical teachers has lead to quantity engineers sans quality. And then, with advancements in technology, there has been ever increasing requirements of engineers in variety of new and emerging areas, apart from conventional engineers. This has lead to a gap in supply and demand of engineers. Survival of the fittest has become a key phrase in engineering career. State has been permitting private players to start educational institute offering degree course in conventional and emerging areas of technology. But there has been stalemate in developing, grooming and nurturing trainers for engineers. Where are the dedicated teachers required to undertake the daunting task of molding a pre-university student to an engineer in a span of 3-5 years. Privately managed institutes have been running at a neck-break speed to develop infrastructure in terms of high quality building, equipment, computers, software etc. But, when it comes to developing faculty members, then there is a speed breaker and every one passes the buck to other. Managements are ready to hire qualified faculty at high contractual fees, but are hesitant to groom their own under-qualified staff, for the fear of high attrition rate. This has lead to a catch 22 situations. The stakeholders have compromised on the quality of engineers being churned out. A new model is being tested by some institutes wherein their under-qualified faculty members are sponsored for higher education at premier technical institutes to undertake MTech and Phd. Once these faculty members return, the institute starts their own post-graduate program, and trains their faculty members by enrolling them as part-time students at MTech and PhD level. With this kind of policy, some institutes have grown and started contributing in research activities by way of publishing papers in national and international level conferences and journals. However, this is a slow process and takes years to evolve.