Tech education in India has to be revamped: Experts

The article — ‘Fuelling the Indian Economic Engine by re-tooling Indian technology education’ — has been published in the latest issue of scientific journal ‘Current Science’.

The current system of technical education has failed to give solutions to major problems like drinking water,electricity,absence of civic planning,rising unemployment,and disparate regional development,they said.

“It is believed that by selectively emulating the American model of higher education,notably technical education,India could usher in hitherto unimaginable waves of development that could vastly improve the standard of living of her citizens,” the duo said in the article.

“Improving a nation’s technical education system is directly correlated to its economic health and the social development of its population. One of the reasons for India’s failings and America’s dominance has been the outdated and ailing technical education system of the former and the excellence of the latter,” the technologists opined.

A revolutionary transformation is required in the manner in which our scientists and engineers are educated,they said while quoting that IITs and the IIMs are modelled along the lines of European,notably British universities.

Dogmatic bureaucracy and conditions stifling innovation have percolated in most of the Indian universities and this has all but killed original research in most departments,they said.

India is yet to witness appreciable improvement in technology sectors which suggests that our professionals are woefully out of depth,the technocrats said.

They also said there is no denying that India needs several more branded institutes of higher learning which would be hubs of new knowledge,but a lack or even absence of proper planning,as seems to be the case with the establishment of the new IITs,will only be a detriment to the country and its institutes.

“Not only are most of these institutes poorly planned,but in lieu of the government’s European approach to funding universities,every additional central university is a drain on precious resources,” the duo said.

Thus,the funds allocated for establishment of such institutes would be better utilised toward restitution of existing institutions especially modernisation of the curricula and teaching facilities,they said.