Holistic Education As A Tool To Overcome Engineering Crisis In India
Shashi Kumar D, Asst. Professor, Christ University , Bangalore
There is a huge crisis for engineering in India. The substandard engineering education in India is now widely known. Most of the engineering colleges in India are unable to provide quality education to engineering students to fetch their jobs of interest.
The main causes of the problem could be:
1. Mushrooming of low quality engineering colleges over years
However, doing engineering is a trend. Practically most of the parent's dream is to make their child an engineer. This trend has boosted the number of engineering colleges without keeping the quality aspects in the mind. Later these institutions turned as production houses of engineers with lack of skill and innovation that is required for the survival in the competitive arena of technology.
2. Lack of integrity among teaching fraternity
This is the biggest challenge that most of the engineering colleges in India are facing.
As per my observations during the last few decades, many teachers who teach in engineering colleges except IITs, IISc and other prestigious institutions in India are not passionate towards their profession. Many took up their profession as teaching due to unavoidable situations, may be they didn't get their dream job due to lack of skills they acquire during their duration of studies. Some may feel there is not much to do in teaching hence they can relax a lot and run their parallel business. They can easily adjust to the work culture without much effort. Making adjustments with the students and management may guarantee their survival in the position. It's disheartening to hear that teachers get into memorandum of understanding (MoU) with students in terms of giving marks and attendance to get good appraisal scores. Looking at some of these aspects how one can expect quality in education.
"There is a widespread notion that the marks reflect the knowledge of a person."
3. Deficiency of required infrastructure in engineering colleges
Many private engineering institutions lack the intellectual infrastructure - comprising qualified and knowledgeable faculty, well equipped laboratories, libraries, internet connectivity for accessing knowledge databases. This will definitely obstruct the engineering graduates to attain practical exposure and get hands on experience. Students from such colleges may not succeed and find their places where their studies and job profiles do not match each other. There are few examples where an engineering graduate is applying for banking, police, marketing jobs. Some end their life in preparing for PSU's and Civil Service examination. Some appear as stand-up comedian, musician, Youtuber and may be an actor.
4. Parental and peer pressure
In Indian families when it comes to what to study, it seems parents and peers have the final say. Many parents are not aware that when their children choose professional courses against children's choice that has an adverse effect on their future prospects. Parents should also note that engineering aspirants must have good analytical and mathematical skills without having these it's really tough to get a good job. It is alarming that unusual rise in backlogs and number of dropouts from engineering colleges have been attributed to the inordinate pressure from the parents and peers. It is very much essential for the parents to know about the strengths and weaknesses before enrolling their children into professional course like engineering.
5. Rat race for the marks
There is a widespread notion that the marks reflect the knowledge of a person. People with good marks are seen as sincere and hardworking. But most of the time I found many students with good marks are bookworms and they don't know what they are studying and why it is needed. Their focus is always to get good marks by whatever the possible way. Sometimes parents also feel marks are important and they pressurise their children to secure good marks without giving importance to knowledge. Being in teaching profession for almost a decade I noticed many students do favours for the teachers to get good marks. They follow shortcuts to get their marks rather by acquiring knowledge. There are many instances that were reported in news that parents bribe to get their kids good marks. In my view the written examinations marks do not truly test one's capability or intelligence. But the fact is that good marks will give you a better initial Launchpad. But in the long run it is the knowledge, skills and attitude which decides one's destiny.
Skilfulness and innovation are the words that became popular among the technological environment. Industries are expecting efficient leaders to cope up with the rapid changes in the current world's economic situations. According to experts in the industry, the institutions imparting higher education should parallel to create managers, engineers and other professional graduates with skill and value addition. In my opinion this is possible only when engineering is taught in a holistic style.
Holistic education involves the complete and solid formation of every aspect of a student's personality. Holistic education helps us to nurture individuals to be intellectually competent, spiritually mature, morally upright, psychologically integrated, physically healthy and socially acceptable (CMI Vision, 1991). Thus adopting holistic education may give better understanding about the circumstances in which they are living. It also help them to find solutions to their routine problems during their course of studying engineering. This may lead them to a successful professional and personal life.
The main causes of the problem could be:
1. Mushrooming of low quality engineering colleges over years
However, doing engineering is a trend. Practically most of the parent's dream is to make their child an engineer. This trend has boosted the number of engineering colleges without keeping the quality aspects in the mind. Later these institutions turned as production houses of engineers with lack of skill and innovation that is required for the survival in the competitive arena of technology.
2. Lack of integrity among teaching fraternity
This is the biggest challenge that most of the engineering colleges in India are facing.
As per my observations during the last few decades, many teachers who teach in engineering colleges except IITs, IISc and other prestigious institutions in India are not passionate towards their profession. Many took up their profession as teaching due to unavoidable situations, may be they didn't get their dream job due to lack of skills they acquire during their duration of studies. Some may feel there is not much to do in teaching hence they can relax a lot and run their parallel business. They can easily adjust to the work culture without much effort. Making adjustments with the students and management may guarantee their survival in the position. It's disheartening to hear that teachers get into memorandum of understanding (MoU) with students in terms of giving marks and attendance to get good appraisal scores. Looking at some of these aspects how one can expect quality in education.
"There is a widespread notion that the marks reflect the knowledge of a person."
3. Deficiency of required infrastructure in engineering colleges
Many private engineering institutions lack the intellectual infrastructure - comprising qualified and knowledgeable faculty, well equipped laboratories, libraries, internet connectivity for accessing knowledge databases. This will definitely obstruct the engineering graduates to attain practical exposure and get hands on experience. Students from such colleges may not succeed and find their places where their studies and job profiles do not match each other. There are few examples where an engineering graduate is applying for banking, police, marketing jobs. Some end their life in preparing for PSU's and Civil Service examination. Some appear as stand-up comedian, musician, Youtuber and may be an actor.
4. Parental and peer pressure
In Indian families when it comes to what to study, it seems parents and peers have the final say. Many parents are not aware that when their children choose professional courses against children's choice that has an adverse effect on their future prospects. Parents should also note that engineering aspirants must have good analytical and mathematical skills without having these it's really tough to get a good job. It is alarming that unusual rise in backlogs and number of dropouts from engineering colleges have been attributed to the inordinate pressure from the parents and peers. It is very much essential for the parents to know about the strengths and weaknesses before enrolling their children into professional course like engineering.
5. Rat race for the marks
There is a widespread notion that the marks reflect the knowledge of a person. People with good marks are seen as sincere and hardworking. But most of the time I found many students with good marks are bookworms and they don't know what they are studying and why it is needed. Their focus is always to get good marks by whatever the possible way. Sometimes parents also feel marks are important and they pressurise their children to secure good marks without giving importance to knowledge. Being in teaching profession for almost a decade I noticed many students do favours for the teachers to get good marks. They follow shortcuts to get their marks rather by acquiring knowledge. There are many instances that were reported in news that parents bribe to get their kids good marks. In my view the written examinations marks do not truly test one's capability or intelligence. But the fact is that good marks will give you a better initial Launchpad. But in the long run it is the knowledge, skills and attitude which decides one's destiny.
Skilfulness and innovation are the words that became popular among the technological environment. Industries are expecting efficient leaders to cope up with the rapid changes in the current world's economic situations. According to experts in the industry, the institutions imparting higher education should parallel to create managers, engineers and other professional graduates with skill and value addition. In my opinion this is possible only when engineering is taught in a holistic style.
Holistic education involves the complete and solid formation of every aspect of a student's personality. Holistic education helps us to nurture individuals to be intellectually competent, spiritually mature, morally upright, psychologically integrated, physically healthy and socially acceptable (CMI Vision, 1991). Thus adopting holistic education may give better understanding about the circumstances in which they are living. It also help them to find solutions to their routine problems during their course of studying engineering. This may lead them to a successful professional and personal life.
