The Higher Education Review

The journey of PSG and Sons in the education sector started when a member of the family was denied admission in one of the British run schools in Coimbatore. The family went on to start the PSG Sarvajana Higher Secondary School and eventually the PSG & Sons’ Charities Trust was created in 1926 with the purpose of augmenting and strengthening this village school. Since, then PSG & Sons’ Charities Trust has been building education institutions across the state of Tamil Nadu. Today, with more than 30 establishments in education, healthcare and community services, the trust has become a global landmark of Indian education. Established in 2014, PSG Institute of Technology and Applied Research or in short PSG iTech, is the newest member in the PSG family.

Within a short span of time since its inception, PSG iTech has created several benchmarks in the higher education sector. Continued support from senior experienced faculty of PSG College of Technology, a 65 year

-old engineering institution located in Coimbatore, in covering advanced technical topics is another major advantage, which reinforces the teaching-learning process of this new campus.

“An impressive infrastructure with a built up area of over four lakh square feet, which houses state-of- art laboratories and sports facilities is one of the unique features of the campus. Presence of PSG Foundry within the campus premises permits students to have a feel of industry practices during the four-year program,” says Dr. P V Mohanram, Principal, PSG iTech. The institute has given a lot of importance to hands-on-training in industries through internships and in-plant training. Emphasis on mini-projects done by students in laboratories beyond their curriculum goes a long way in making PSG iTech students industry-ready. In addition to that, the institute has been highly conscious in recruiting full-time faculty members from industries with rich experience as “Professor of Practice” in order to disseminate the nuances of industry culture to the students in both theory and laboratory courses.

In collaboration with industries, PSG iTech has set up Centers of Excellence (CoE) including Festo-PSG Pneumatic Automation Center (with Festo Controls (India), Bangalore), NI-PSG Virtual

Instrumentation Center (with National Instruments(India), Bangalore), Keysight Centre for Excellence in RF Design (with Keysight Technologies, Bangalore ) and ILENSYS-PSG Product Application Center (with Ilensys, Hyderabad).

These centers are open 24 X 7 and permit students to do projects and gain hands- on-training on state-of-art technologies in their respective fields. Industry partners use the CoEs for training their clients and executives. Research activities in these CoEs are focused on the R&D needs of industries. “Our faculty members are involved in training industry executives like that of M/s Ashok Leyland, M/s L&T and many more. This strengthens industry-institute interaction and the state- of-art laboratories are currently involved in extending consultancy service to the neighboring industries in and around Coimbatore,” claims Dr. Mohanram.

With plans to expand the Centre of Excellence (CoE) with other industry partners like Google, CISCO, SAP and many more, PSG iTech is on a high growth trajectory to become leaders in technical education. “We have also envisaged to establish a Robotics Lab jointly with IIT Bombay. Such CoEs will expose the students to the latest technologies in the respective fields,” concludes Dr. Mohanram.