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Journalism of Courage
India, as this newspaper reported last Friday, produces far fewer civil engineers than its needs. If the situation doesn8217;t change soon, the economy will bear witness to infrastructure delays because of lack of qualified personnel. Only about 10 per cent of students opt for civil engineering at the IITs and a meagre 200 of the 1700 AICTE-approved colleges offer a course in it. The reason is the more lucrative IT sector. As potential employers and teachers complain, the lure of higher salaries draws students to computer science and electronics. The implication is that the market is guilty, or the economic liberalisation that engendered the IT revolution. But it is the market itself that, today, is begging for civil engineers. While the re-employment of retired servicemen is mitigating the problem to a nominal extent, the fact remains that India, as a rapidly developing economy, is witnessing a building boom. Linked to this growth in residential and commercial housing is our need for roads, bridges, railroads, nuclear reactors, etc 8212; the modern infrastructure that India must have. This needs a steady supply of quality civil engineers, trained in the latest technology.
However, the sad story of civil engineering is symptomatic of higher education in general in India. Demand exceeds supply in every conceivable way in this sphere. We don8217;t have colleges and universities enough to cater to the demand for academic and vocational education. When and where we do have the institutions, they are deprived of the necessary infrastructure and faculty strength. Thus, students suffer and their potential to serve the new economy remains curbed. So is it with civil engineering where the market is deprived in terms of quantity and quality of human resources.
