Time ripe to redefine Technical Education: Dr Pratapsinh Kakasaheb Desai
KALABURAGI; The President of Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE) Dr Pratapsinh Kakasaheb Desai said today that that the time was ripe to redefine the technical education to make it more research and knowledge based to make all the students of the technical education employable and valuable asset to the society.
Speaking after inaugurating the ISTE Faculty and Student Chapter of the Sharnbasva University at the Doddappa Appa Auditorium in the main campus of the University in Kalaburagi city on Saturday, Dr Desai did not mince his words to remark that the different surveys have pointed out that only a very small percentage of the engineering graduates were skilled to become employable.
While one survey pointed out that only 18 per cent of the engineering graduates were employable, a survey by the World Bank had pointed out only 8 percent of the engineering graduates were employable and another survey conducted by the Multi National Companies painted a sorry state of affairs and pointed out that 48 per cent of the computer engineers were not skilled to write error free code.
Dr Desai said that the present crop of the students joining the technical courses were not interested in getting mere information available in the books during their course period and were more interested in gaining knowledge which would be upscale their skills. The knowledge in education could be imparted only through research programmes and the continuous research activities in the universities would make them centres of knowledge which in turn would enable the students a much sought after resource by the Industry.
The lack of knowledge based education was forcing the students to pursue their higher education in foreign universities and as per one official study every year 9 billion US Dollars is spent by these students to pursue their higher education in foreign university, which is more than the annual outlay in the Union Budget for the higher education. “The present generation of the students were not interested in setting in abroad or pursuing their higher education in foreign universities and yearn for a knowledge based higher education in Indian Centres of higher education”.
Dr Desai said that the ISTE was the single largest body in the entire world which is working for the improvement of the technical education since 1941. Atpresent more than 1.64 lakh teachers were life members of the ISTE, every year 6.5 lakh students enroll themselves as the members of the ISTE and 4700 out of the 4800 total institutions were members of the ISTE. The ISTE was closely involved in training and upgrading the skills of the teachers.
Heaping praise on the Sharnbasva University for having a young and dedicated staff, Dr Desai said that the time was not far off for the University to emerge as one of the leading Universities in the country.
University Vice Chancellor Dr Niranjan Nisty presided over the function.Registrar of the University Dr Anilkumar Bidve, Regional Head of the CPGS, VTU in Kalaburagi Dr Baswaraj Gadgay spoke on the occasion. Prominent among others who were present included Pro Vice Chancellor Prof V D Mytri, Dean of the University Dr Lakshmi Patil Maka, Chairman of the IETE Sub Centre Dr D C Shubhangi, Registrar (Evaluation) Dr Basavaraj Matpathi and others.