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The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is looking to improve the quality of technical education in the country. BusinessLine reached out to AICTE Chairman Anil Sahasrabudhe to get his perspective on the challenges and way forward for technical education institutes. Excerpts:
What are the steps the AICTE is taking to improve the quality of technical education?
In the last three years, around 600 colleges of sub-standard quality have been shut. The poor ones are getting closed on their own but the AICTE is helping institutes which fall under the mediocre category by supporting them. Keeping this in consideration, the technical body has also come up with a mentoring programme. The aim is that one good institute should mentor 10 more institutes. The AICTE is also focussing on a quality test so in the next four years if the college fails to improve its quality it will be closed.
How do you think the 10 per cent EWS quota will impact the institutes?
In general, it will not have much impact but it will help the students who come under the lower income group to get admissions in better quality institutions.It will help students who cannot afford to go to high end coaching classes. With this move, talented students will get into good institutes.
What are the challenges faced by the technical education in India?
It is a two way problem — institutions and industry. So firstly, the institutions have to understand that they need to improve their curricula, teaching-learning process, practical hands-on training, examination reforms. To rectify this problem, the AICTE is advocating the open book exam. The other is, more industry participation in the institute and to overcome it now, it is mandatory for institutes to set up industry-institute participation cell to bridge the gap between industry expectations and academic offerings.
How can India become a hub of technical education in the coming days?
The initiatives that the AICTE has taken will bring a change, earlier the role of AICTE was to only give approval. It never mentored the institutes and lifted their quality, and a positive change can be seen with these. In terms of innovation, we stood at 81 rank five years ago, today we stand at 57. We are moving forward to be among the top technical education places globally.
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