While India is witnessing a major shift in the overall governance across sectors, Education somehow remains the weakest link in the fray.
In a recent media interaction, the incumbent Chairperson of the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), Prof Anil Sahasrabuddhe commented, “We want to be more strict with setting up of new institutions. With a large number of seats going vacant in technical education institutions, the norms of setting up of new ones need a review.” This came in the advent of a whopping reduction of Engineering seats by 40% from the current 1.67 million.
An otherwise well meaning academic having steered the prestigious College of Engineering, Pune for over a decade, he has somehow chosen to tow the conventional line from the high office he has been elevated to, this July.
His predecessor, another soft spoken academic at heart, Prof. S S Mantha, was known to pass on the buck of ailing regulation to the states which don't share the perspective plans while having such a vast spectrum of members on his governing council at his disposal.
The riddle of regulating Higher Technical Education in the country has been besieged with such conventional commentaries which somewhere fail to envision and thereby position its role & relevance in consonance with the larger national narrative.
In an increasing technological era, every strand of economic intervention is getting affected and influenced by technology in one way or the other. Transforming an age-old civilization like that of India, which is considered to live in multiple centuries at the same time, would thereby need an army of technocrats possessing a sound orientation and initiation into the world of technological discourse.
The Top-Down aspirational Policy initiatives of Make in India, Digital India, Smart Cities, AMRUT, Swaccha Bharat, Shramev Jayate et al would somewhere need a ground swell & support which can be duly provided by these Higher Technical Institutions which dot at least 400 districts of the country at large.
When the elite club of Centrally Funded Technical Institutions (CFTIs)of all hues like Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs); National Institutes of Technology (NITs); Indian Institutes of Scientific & Engineering Research (IISERs)etc. have not been able to synchronize their institutional priorities with those of national objectives, how come these insignificant lots having got established from unorganized small scale private investments can envision the same?
Nonetheless, these institutions governed by the respective State Technical Universities, present the stark potential to make a difference at the grassroots, if given a chance. Interestingly, the Vice-Chancellors of these State Technical Universities are rarely given a chance in National Level Policy making in due spirit of Team India for Higher Technical Education. It should not be a far fetched proposition to have a special place for these eduLEADERS who are steering through this vast higher technical education establishment in their respective states in AICTE governance.
The District Level Governance is replete with inadequacies and inefficiencies in terms of adequately empowered manpower and platforms for research, analysis, deliberations & customizations suiting the local needs. The 31 odd line departments running a district are in a perpetual need of technologically oriented manpower aiding & supporting their various planning & analytical functions. The Municipalities, the Development Authorities, the Traffic Police, the Irrigation Department, the Tourism Department, you name it, and you have it - the craving for additional efficient manpower and local level research & customization.
The local industrial clusters which have been carrying forward the subsistence manufacturing need technologically oriented manpower to understand their current challenges and find out resolutions suiting their local & regional context. The back-end design and front-end communications of their business life-cycles is a dominant need of these 40 million odd MSMEs.
The artisans of all hues can be duly empowered by technology enabled interventions. Innumerable number of other trading enterprise; social organizations; religious outfits; other institutions all are in the process of transformation thriving on technological tools.
Why can't this huge pool of techno-managers being nurtured in this vast higher technical education set-up be oriented & deployed as an additional cadre to support this local level demand? Engagement with one stream or the other can ensue right from the first year of study in the due spirit of exposing them to the spree of problems which can have a technological solution.
The dove-tailing and stitching together of such a vast initiative won't be difficult. Ample experiments have already been done on this philosophy.
However, a structured policy push is what is warranted for whereby these Higher Technical Institutions are seen as Local Resource Centres and not merely as Dengue Mosquitos which have unwarrantedly emanated on the national scene. A sense of ownership would have to be taken up than the typical extension of the 'save the skin' syndrome.
This would however need a paradigm shift in perspective about the role & relevance of this vast array of Higher Technical Institutions which was allowed to germinate in the last one and a half decade. Instead of seeing this as a monstrous development, it can rather be seen more as a god-send opportunity. The population narrative of India, which was surmised to be a national specter somewhere got transformed into a more positive one of "demographic dividend", whose potential is now being invoked time and again.
The long term sustainability and ascendance of India's prowess on the global scene can only be accentuated by a well meaning original thought on India's educational governance and the best starting point can be the technical education of the country which is thankfully duly invested in and is replete with profound edupreneurs connected to the ground realities.
It probably needs the much left-out "Modi-Touch" to galvanize the energies & enthusiasm of all those who matter in the fray.
In a recent media interaction, the incumbent Chairperson of the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), Prof Anil Sahasrabuddhe commented, “We want to be more strict with setting up of new institutions. With a large number of seats going vacant in technical education institutions, the norms of setting up of new ones need a review.” This came in the advent of a whopping reduction of Engineering seats by 40% from the current 1.67 million.
An otherwise well meaning academic having steered the prestigious College of Engineering, Pune for over a decade, he has somehow chosen to tow the conventional line from the high office he has been elevated to, this July.
His predecessor, another soft spoken academic at heart, Prof. S S Mantha, was known to pass on the buck of ailing regulation to the states which don't share the perspective plans while having such a vast spectrum of members on his governing council at his disposal.
The riddle of regulating Higher Technical Education in the country has been besieged with such conventional commentaries which somewhere fail to envision and thereby position its role & relevance in consonance with the larger national narrative.
In an increasing technological era, every strand of economic intervention is getting affected and influenced by technology in one way or the other. Transforming an age-old civilization like that of India, which is considered to live in multiple centuries at the same time, would thereby need an army of technocrats possessing a sound orientation and initiation into the world of technological discourse.
The Top-Down aspirational Policy initiatives of Make in India, Digital India, Smart Cities, AMRUT, Swaccha Bharat, Shramev Jayate et al would somewhere need a ground swell & support which can be duly provided by these Higher Technical Institutions which dot at least 400 districts of the country at large.
When the elite club of Centrally Funded Technical Institutions (CFTIs)of all hues like Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs); National Institutes of Technology (NITs); Indian Institutes of Scientific & Engineering Research (IISERs)etc. have not been able to synchronize their institutional priorities with those of national objectives, how come these insignificant lots having got established from unorganized small scale private investments can envision the same?
Nonetheless, these institutions governed by the respective State Technical Universities, present the stark potential to make a difference at the grassroots, if given a chance. Interestingly, the Vice-Chancellors of these State Technical Universities are rarely given a chance in National Level Policy making in due spirit of Team India for Higher Technical Education. It should not be a far fetched proposition to have a special place for these eduLEADERS who are steering through this vast higher technical education establishment in their respective states in AICTE governance.
The District Level Governance is replete with inadequacies and inefficiencies in terms of adequately empowered manpower and platforms for research, analysis, deliberations & customizations suiting the local needs. The 31 odd line departments running a district are in a perpetual need of technologically oriented manpower aiding & supporting their various planning & analytical functions. The Municipalities, the Development Authorities, the Traffic Police, the Irrigation Department, the Tourism Department, you name it, and you have it - the craving for additional efficient manpower and local level research & customization.
The local industrial clusters which have been carrying forward the subsistence manufacturing need technologically oriented manpower to understand their current challenges and find out resolutions suiting their local & regional context. The back-end design and front-end communications of their business life-cycles is a dominant need of these 40 million odd MSMEs.
The artisans of all hues can be duly empowered by technology enabled interventions. Innumerable number of other trading enterprise; social organizations; religious outfits; other institutions all are in the process of transformation thriving on technological tools.
Why can't this huge pool of techno-managers being nurtured in this vast higher technical education set-up be oriented & deployed as an additional cadre to support this local level demand? Engagement with one stream or the other can ensue right from the first year of study in the due spirit of exposing them to the spree of problems which can have a technological solution.
The dove-tailing and stitching together of such a vast initiative won't be difficult. Ample experiments have already been done on this philosophy.
However, a structured policy push is what is warranted for whereby these Higher Technical Institutions are seen as Local Resource Centres and not merely as Dengue Mosquitos which have unwarrantedly emanated on the national scene. A sense of ownership would have to be taken up than the typical extension of the 'save the skin' syndrome.
This would however need a paradigm shift in perspective about the role & relevance of this vast array of Higher Technical Institutions which was allowed to germinate in the last one and a half decade. Instead of seeing this as a monstrous development, it can rather be seen more as a god-send opportunity. The population narrative of India, which was surmised to be a national specter somewhere got transformed into a more positive one of "demographic dividend", whose potential is now being invoked time and again.
The long term sustainability and ascendance of India's prowess on the global scene can only be accentuated by a well meaning original thought on India's educational governance and the best starting point can be the technical education of the country which is thankfully duly invested in and is replete with profound edupreneurs connected to the ground realities.
It probably needs the much left-out "Modi-Touch" to galvanize the energies & enthusiasm of all those who matter in the fray.
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