In an effort to focus the attention on some endemic problems faced by the Indian industry with regards to engineering education and the absence of good quality engineers, professors Rangan Bannerjee and Vinayak Muley of the Department of Energy Science and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IITB) have prepared a study report on Engineering Education in India.

The report has drawn up a list of conclusions and policy recommendations based on an elaborate research with the help of primary and secondary resources and has focused on a few sample engineering colleges to understand the trends.

Based on the report, a panel discussion on India’s leadership in Manufacturing ¿Role of Engineering Education, was held on Saturday bringing together industry leaders and experts like Rajeev Katyal, director education, Microsoft India, Pramod Khera, CEO and MD, Aptech, Shyam Kambeyanda, MD, Eaton Corporation, JK Tandon, director projects, JSW Steel, SK Shirguppi, director, Rolta India, Chirag Doshi, MD, Walchandnagar Industries, Pradeep Chinai, MD, Ceekay-Daikin among others.

Also present was Dr R Chidambaram, principal scientific advisor to the government of India. The project has been sponsored by the Observer Research Foundation, a public policy think tank.

Professor Baneerjee said, “There is need for strategic policy interventions and industry-government-academia interactions to strengthen engineering education in the country. The report is just a means to initiate debates and discussions on the subject.”

The report lays emphasis on engineering PhDs. The number of engineering doctorates awarded in India each year is about 1,000 which is less than one per cent of the total engineering graduate degrees awarded every year. The international comparison showed that, in most countries, the number of PhD degrees awarded annually range between 5-9 per cent of the engineering graduate degrees awarded. Involvement of industry to sponsor special doctoral fellowships was one of the ways to attract good students to the PhD programme, the report noted. Besides, improving the PhD experience and facilitating challenging careers after Phd could also increase the number of PhDs.

Attracting good quality faculty, faculty quality improvement, research partnership, quality engineering and science education to large numbers, role of IITs, IISC and other reputed institutes, paradigm shift in teaching, industry linkages are some of the other issues highlighted in the report.

All the panelists of the discussion had unanimous views on the need for more PhDs, lack of practical component in engineering curriculum, industry-academia collaboration, quality of institutes etc.

Dr Chidambaram said, that the challenge before India was to attract talented young people into engineering research and that industry had a major proactive role to play in this. Rajeev Katyal said, “India gets around 50,000 engineers every year. None of the engineers that we recruit are project ready. We spend around Rs 30,000 on every student for post recruitment training.” Chirag Doshi agreed, “The curriculum is outdated and needs to be revised more often. The industry should be involved in formulating a new curriculum.” Professor Deepak Pathak of IITB suggested autonomy of institutions as a possible solution to bridge the industry academia gap.

The Findings
Through data collected from various Indian and international institutes, the report shows that India’s growth rates in engineering degrees are higher than countries like the US, UK, China, Japan, South Korea, Germany and Australia. It also shows that India’s doctorate degrees are less than 1 per cent of its graduate degrees. This is significantly higher in all the other countries. The IITs and Indian Institute of Science contribute to less than one per cent of the engineering graduates, about 20 per cent of M Techs and 40 per cent of engineering doctorates. They are able to attract reasonable research funding. The faculty base in IITs is almost stagnant (or growing at very low growth rates).