Technical education produces trained professionals that are responsible for technological advances and sustainable development. The relevance of technical education is evident from the fact that many Indian families aspire for their children to become engineers and technologists. The trend continues, even today, but the number of seats is not as scarce as it used to be in the 1980s, when there were a smaller number of institutions for pursuing technical education, and there was predominance of government engineering colleges.
The situation started changing after the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) was conferred statutory force by the AICTE Act 1987 for the promotion of quality in technical education, planning and coordinated development of the technical education system, and regulations and maintenance of norms and standards in India. Subsequently, a significant increase in the number of seats and institutions was seen post liberalization in a regulated manner. Leaving exceptions aside, the regulator succeeded in maintaining the standard of technical education.
However, a new scenario emerged in the last few years, as there are AICTE-approved engineering institutions with the prescribed intake and flexible number of seats in institutions / departments run by universities. It has resulted in the abundance of seats in undergraduate engineering programmes, and there is no dearth of admission opportunities now. But concerns regarding the worthiness of technical graduates calls for deeper contemplation to transform these institutions for good quality education.
Undoubtedly, the national regulator has a great role to play in this transformation, but it is important to introspect on how academics has changed over a period of time and what has been the role of the regulations and the degree-granting universities in maintaining as well as strengthening the overall quality of technical education.
Curriculum and Syllabus
Philosophically, the degree granting university is solely responsible for deciding the curriculum, syllabus, and scheme of examination for the programmes offered by it, and the same was prevalent before the national regulator brought out the model curriculum. Prior to the model curriculum, the universities were independently floating the engineering & technology programmes with credits hovering around 200 to 220 in some cases.
But the model curriculum prescribed by the regulator reduced these credits drastically to 160 for UG degree in engineering and technology, with the outcome-based education model being enforced across the nation. As per the revised model UG curriculum of 2018, the programme framework was designed in 160 credits with a core comprising basic sciences and engineering having focus on fundamentals, discipline level significant courses and ample opportunity for the students to take electives both from the discipline and cross disciplines, provisions for internship to understand the industry requirements, have hands-on experience and to pursue project work in their final year relevant to industry for developing a problem solving approach to meet the challenges in future.
It is worth mentioning that the reduction in credits is not a mere numerical reduction from 200 to 160, it brings down the number of subjects, number of contact hours, and reduces weightage which certainly changes the overall learning opportunities in the context of the specific discipline of engineering and technology. Along this, the apportionment of certain credits for leaning through online platforms influences the effective learning. It becomes quite critical when the technical UG degree programmes offered are discipline focused like B.Tech.in Civil Engg. , Electrical Engg. , Electronics Engg.,Mechanical Engg. , etc.
After a reasonable period, it is high time to reassess what the implications of credit reduction have been. Has it really helped in improving the capabilities of graduating engineers / technologists pursuing a particular programme in a lesser credit framework post 2018 as compared to the larger credit framework prior to 2018?
Teachers and students
AICTE has a practice of fixing the teacher-student ratio through its norms and standards issued from time to time. A look back shows that the AICTE’s regulatory framework prescribed a minimum teacher-student ratio of 1:10 initially in technical institutions running UG degrees. Chronologically, this was changed to 1:15 and further relaxed to 1:20. These are not the numbers, rather it lays down the formula for the number of teachers. For example, an institution with 2000 students may be requiring 200 teachers as per 1:10 teacher-student ratio, which will be reduced to merely 100 teachers as the teacher-student ratio is changed to 1:20. Thus, the relaxation in the teacher-student ratio has yielded a significant reduction in the requirement of teachers to teach as per norms prescribed by the regulator. The creation of provisions to accept courses completed through online platforms is another blow to the requirement of teachers. The lesser number of teachers to mentor students essentially affects the teaching-learning-assessment activities adversely, as the role of the teacher in creating, running and sustaining the teaching-learning-examination ecosystem cannot be undermined.
Implications
Prima-facie, the larger number of credits framework had more contact hours, more academic load, insufficient time for internships or other initiatives by students during the formal study. While in a lesser credit system, there are more opportunities for internships and taking up other activities as the class contact hours are fewer and accordingly a lesser number of domain specific subjects are taught. In a way, there has been a shift from classroom engagement with the possibility of teacher supported education to a lesser credit situation with more of self-learning in the industry to corroborate learning.
Apparently, the reduction in class contact hours has relieved students from formal learning in the institutions but burdened them to fill up the gaps on their own, which is creating a precarious situation with many of the students. Also, the lesser contact hours do not allow longer interaction with teachers and adversely effects the professional growth of students.
Undoubtedly, as regards internships, there is a great push by the government; still, due to the very large number, it is not easy for all the UG students of engineering/technology to get worthwhile internship opportunities. This has also resulted in various organizations thriving by offering paid internship opportunities, which defeats the spirit behind getting hands-on industry experience to augment classroom learnings to a certain extent. With such organizations meant for providing internships, the expectation of adequate learning becomes a challenge. But the students are not left with any option except to opt for them due to curriculum requirements.
However, there has been a simultaneous reduction in teacher requirements by relaxing the teacher-student ratio. But, the moot point of why the learners should not be made to learn more of domain knowledge in formal learning set up so that they have the requisite capabilities, remains unanswered specifically.
Further, the reduction of the subjects and contact hours is leading to deficient technical competencies as compared to the earlier higher credit framework. Such a reduction in credits eventually burdens the students to make up the learning deficit by attending coaching after passing out, which not only penalizes them financially but also refrains them from demonstrating the necessary technical competency to secure suitable placements in their domain.
In the context to human resource, the credit reduction and relaxation in teacher-student ratio norms have led to lesser requirement of teachers to take care of academic requirements. This reduces the employment opportunities for the teachers in specific domains, as well as compared to the pre 2018 framework.
Way forward
Given the role of technical education in the sustenance and growth of civilization through technology, a wholesome discourse is inevitable. The senior academics in technical education must look back and compare the technical education of their time with the present offerings. In view of the prevailing quality of technical graduates being culmination of the existing norms, standards and curriculum framework, time is ripe for the concerted efforts of academics, regulator and government for revisiting the prescribed norms, standards, and curriculum framework to raise the bar. Academic freedom in rolling out the best technical human resources through a suitably crafted curriculum should be mandated for all institutions and universities. The quality of technical graduates cannot be ameliorated by reducing the academic rigour in classroom and laboratories; instead, these should be enriched quantitatively and qualitatively both for making students learn, think and apply. This also warrants provisions for engaging sufficiently good number of committed teachers for strengthening the teacher-learning-examination ecosystem.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
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