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If we’ve had a look at the calendars today, not many of us would’ve bothered to look twice. It is a relatively normal date, September 15. But what the many of us do not know is that today is Engineer’s day, a day that commemorates the birthday of Shri. M. Visvesvaraya, a great Indian engineering juggernaut.
However, are we actually celebrating the Indian engineering education scenario? Not quite. India’s education system is often cited as one of the main contributors to the economic rise of India. The size of India’s higher education market is about $40 billion per year. Presently about 12.4 percent of students go for higher education from the country. If India were to increase that figure of 12.4% to 30%, then it would need another 800 to one thousand universities and over 40,000 colleges in the next 10 years.
India, with more than a billion residents, has the second largest education system in the world (after China). But contrary to the image of India as a youthful engine of economic growth where many urban-based citizens work in some of the best technology-centered jobs in the world, the ground reality is such that many technically qualified students are found to be wanting in technical skills. Skills which signify a person’s cognitive capabilities and technical acumen seem to be relatively low in the new generation of engineering graduates that are churned out of India’s 3,345 engineering colleges.
If there’s a key take away from this, it has to be the fact that the education system seems to falter in a few key areas. Thanks to the Indian attitudes of “रट लेना” , most students tend to just rush through concepts in the last moment, memorize them and leave with half baked knowledge for the examinations. Once they are done with examinations, the whole subject or concept becomes useless to them. The practical learning of concepts is something these students give less credence to.
When such is the state, how can a culture of innovation and competition thrive in an ecosystem where thousands of engineers with basically zero understanding of concepts are made to sit in front of personnel from the industry who are on the lookout for talent that has a practical understanding of the industry. This is one of the main reasons why a majority of engineers in our country are considered unemployable.
How can this be changed? By endless lectures to bored audiences? A big NO.
The indian engineering scenario cannot be changed at the superficial level. It needs change at the grassroots level- the schooling. If every student is shown the importance of creativity and the significance of practically learning his concepts, whether be it Science or Math, he/she would shun from memorizing concepts and rather try to learn them.
Concepts in STEM learning can be learnt using innovative activities such as building miniature working models of cars, aircraft or robots. This will help them fine tune their understanding of vital concepts of science and technology and understand the inner workings behind major tech.
Let us save budding engineers from the indian education scenario and earn them the future they deserve.
Happy Engineers Day !
Happy Roboting ! !
