Engineering A New World Education

How is the face of engineering changing? What would you say are the challenges facing engineers today and what do you see, as the means to overcome them?
50 years ago, engineering was more manufacturing oriented. Today the service sector has grown from 10% to 60%. While the industry needs have changed, the mechanics-focused syllabus hasn't, leaving students ill-equipped to cope with market realities.

With Information Technology acting as a major driver of change, the world has become flat, drastically changing the role of management in Engineering. Engineers today are expected to manage teams, social issues as well as come up with effective design and service solutions.

The application context of engineering has changed, but our educational systems still lack the dynamism required to understand what the market forces are demanding and cater to it. With the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) dictating the syllabus, even good colleges that could provide an education on par with global standards are being held back.

We need quality education institutions that are not controlled by political and administrative factors. The government needs to encourage experiments in the field of education, by both state and private institutions.

What would you say are the industries that offer the greatest potential to the engineers of the future?
Aerospace, automotive and ship-building offer tremendous opportunities for engineers. While the railways has been lagging behind in our country, I see immense scope for growth in that sector in the next five to ten years.

Defense research is also likely to enter the private domain, increasing the scope for engineers.

Which countries do you think have the best engineers and opportunities for engineers? Where does India stand on this list? Does an Indian engineering education equip students to thrive in a global environment?
I think India would rank amongst the top 10 countries in terms of the quality of engineers it produces. However, of the 9,000 odd engineering institutions in the country today, around 8,800 are not quite up to the mark. If we produce 700,000 engineers a year, just 1,00,000 of those would be of high calibre. Our regulatory bodies have failed miserably by giving permission to everybody to conduct engineering courses and not monitoring the quality of education being provided.

Two forces that cause an engineer to relocate are compensation and challenge. Europe, America and Canada offer tremendous opportunities for engineers. They offer the challenges that most engineers crave, as well as generous compensation.

Do you think there is a gap between the skills of engineering graduates and industry requirements? What are the essential skills that you think colleges fail to teach their students? What do you think colleges can do to bridge this gap?
Analytical skills, effective communication and creative thinking are essential for any engineer. If our education systems and regulatory bodies do not become more dynamic in understanding and adapting to industry requirements, colleges will need to work around the prescribed syllabus to impart these essential abilities to their students.

Additionally we need to develop the leadership potential of our engineers and encourage them to 'patent and prosper' not 'publish and perish'.

Often, adequate investments are not made to train the faculty at engineering institutes. This in turn, reflects on the quality of engineering education available.

Technology can also be used to great effect to improve the quality of education. For instance, Mahindra Ecole Centrale (MEC) has a FLIP-education program that offers blended (online+offline) education and focuses on tutorial sessions as opposed to lectures. This makes subjects less discourse-oriented and more discussion oriented. It also implies that the 30 students who opt for the tutorial must be prepared to participate in an interactive session. This facilitates pre-processing, processing and post-processing of information and concepts, which improves learning.

Industry experience is also a great teacher. AT MEC, for instance we offer two summer internships, one at an international organisation and one at an indigenous one. Students are likely to be absorbed by the companies that they work with, so we don't have to worry about placements.