The growth of a nation is based on multiple criteria viz., philosophy of its being, wealth, trade,infrastructure, technology, socio-political well being and a skilled population. Of all these factors, the skill levels of the natives become crucial for other criteria to happen, sustain and flourish. For more than two centuries England, a small Isle near Europe was able to colonize the world with the skill of its populace in sea faring and trade. Today, we can see many a superpower, let alone wealthy nations that are floundering to meet the newer challenges of changing times due to the lack of skill amidst native populace and hence are inviting skilled immigrants from across continents to fill their 'Skill Vacuum'. Thus the imparting and nurturing of skill sets of different disciplines among the population of a country has the potential to determine its factors of growth apart from its future course and position amidst other nations.
In this backdrop, if we consider the imparting and nurturing of 'Civil Engineering' education, the importance of it could be understood well. In an ideal scenario of imparting 'Civil Engineering Education', an intimate association with and a complete understanding of needs apart from an all-out effort to satiate those needs would exist between the Industry and Academy. In such an ideal order, the Industry would be ready to spend for the sake of nurturing academy, its research apart from providing guidance and training to the faculty and students. Similarly the academic faculty would be cognizant of the progress in their discipline that caters to the needs of the industry and would endeavor to stretch it with their own research apart from inculcating similar attitude and involvement into their students. Such state of cooperation between Academy and Industry, in such an ideal order would be so high that the two entities would be vying with each other in excelling in training,research, implementation and its eventual success, that the very area of distinction between the two might become so vague that it might eventually vanish.
In stark contrast to the above stated ideal order, is the reality of engineering colleges teaching redundant course material that might cater to conventional requirements,but can never help students to meet the emerging challenges in industry. In most colleges, the Civil Engineering syllabi focus is excessively design oriented. With such meager practical orientation that most times is partially or completely bereft of supportive 'Information Technology' content, the students become oblivious to the latest in the field. As the training provided by these engineering colleges too tends to be entirely theoretical and not industry-oriented, with scanty opportunities for site visits and practicals restricted to laboratory,there is hardly any structured field work involved. With their system of Engineering education in shambles,the issue of personal growth of students in developing entrepreneurial skills and other technological competencies has virtually no place. With such ill equipped training, the students of such institutions are let out into the 'Jungle' of an extremely competitive job market, where only the fittest with up-to-date knowledge of Civil domain and allied technologies survive to become a Civil Engineer. Thus these hapless students imparted with theoretical knowledge at the expense of practical knowledge are rendered jobless for years together. It is an irony that even Civil Diploma holders tend to fare better in job placements, as they have the advantage of more practical exposure apart from their readiness to be employed for a far lower pay package. Though there are a whole lot of reasons for this state of affair, a people oriented approach is the need of the hour to ensure Industry Oriented education to the benefit of Civil Engineering Students, which we are to discuss here.
Administrator's Roll in Civil Engineering Industry Interface
To begin with, the making or breaking of an Engineering Academy's industry oriented approach towards imparting technology education lies in the hands of the administrators whose objectives in running the institution are the prima facie causes for the state of their institutions. Considering the raison de'etre of an Engineering Academy in an Administrator's perspective, there might be four major basis viz., Lucrative returns, Prestige and Status, Service to a community or people and Passion for academic excellence. Of all these reasons an Administrator's Passion for academic excellence alone could contribute to the 'Effective and Superior Pedagogy' of an Engineering institution leading to Industry Oriented Education.This altruistic Industry Oriented approach might find big hurdles in the form of pressure to show results, competition from financially stronger institutions, extra efforts and hardships in deviating from well laid syllabi and in going down below in the rankings of media whose representatives take vicarious pleasure in awarding marks (264 / 300!) and ranks to institutions,blissfully oblivious to the fact that passion to educate and to be educated are abstract phenomenon.
The foremost task of an administrator in initiating 'Industry oriented' approach would be to process 'Ideas' in the domain from various quarters and on a global scale. Upon hitting the appropriate ideas that are suitable and executable, he should follow that with a SWOT analysis of his institution with the objective of original solutions that meet the demands of the time, capability of the institution and is promising in its results. It is here that most administrators tend to fail, as they become copy cats of anationally or globally renowned institutions, providing half baked solutions that are neither made adaptable for the requirements and benefit of their institution, faculty, students or industry nor could be implemented for a prolonged period of time in a sustained manner. For instance an Engineering College with majority of students from rural or backward area would do well in focusing on communication skills, Industrial and IT exposure before exposing its students to state of art technology exposure provided by an urban academy. This does not mean that global coordination is no good. It just is an effort to reiterate to the administrators the importance of ensuring original thought process and implementation of ideas, which are crucial for the sustained growth of 'Industry - Academy' relations, to the benefit of all stakeholders involved. And this original thought process is extremely crucial in the accurate identification of apt 'Industry Liaison' as well.
The next areas of focus for administrators include Result oriented implementation, Enhancement of Pedagogy and Ensuring Industrial Exposure in a sustained manner. Result oriented implementation is just ensuring that the efforts of reaching out to 'Industry' does bear results rather than wasting time, energy and money on fruitless ventures for publicity. Such publicity seeking tactics might give short term benefits but are sure to fizzle out in the long run, if not backfire. The next aspect of enhancing pedagogy mainly involves the faculty and their enhanced quest towards cognizing the industry and imparting education that is industry oriented. The best thing that could be done in this regard is to recruit talented faculty with industry background. While delving on the up gradation of educational quality in Civil Engineering academies Dr. A R. Santhakumar,emeritus professor, IIT, Chennai relates his experience of being taken into academy as a lecturer on the basis of his industrial experience through a scheme specifically aimed at recruiting technocrats from the industry. Thus Civil Engineering institutions would do well to ensure recruitment of such experienced engineering professionals associated with the industry and its research for a fairly long a period of time to enhance 'Pedagogy' and industry orientation. The next step is to ensure sustained interface with the industry which could be achieved by building relations with Industry leaders in all earnestness. It would pay to have an understanding with experienced Civil Engineers from the Industry to serve as visiting faculty. The crucial thing here is initiative on the part of the administration of the academy. While the representative of a renowned Government Civil Engineering Academy blamed Civil Engineers with experience in the industry for generally avoiding such academic contacts, Mr. Parameshwaran, Dean, Industry Academy Interaction Cell, SRM University begs to differ, as he provides a list of top level Civil Engineers who has been providing guest lectures at this academy. Thus it is clear that if academy starts extending its hand, the industry would only be too ready to unclench its fists, as Obama would prefer to put it. One extremely vital aspect in this regard is the establishment of dedicated cells under the leadership of professionals to ensure Industry- Academy interface. Many institutions are satisfied with the setup of ‘Placement Cell’ alone, which has nothing to do with industry oriented educational approach. Again such dedicated cells should be monitored of their progress with appropriate metrics to achieve the desired levels of industrial interface, on a sustained basis. Faculty and Industry Oriented Tutelage
One area of no compromise in any Engineering Institute is the quality of its faculty in terms of better communication skills, inspiring teaching techniques coupled with a lot of practical aspects and the most important of all up-to-date knowledge of the industry.Adequate care should be given to the faculty right from their selection and in providing avenues to elevate their academic status. Dr. Elizabeth Verghese,Chancellor, Hindustan University rued over the way faculty attrition has adversely affected the quality of education provided by Engineering Colleges. With big growth, the prospects for careers too have burgeoned resulting in a paucity of talents and bleeding attrition.
An analysis of the causes of attrition and averting them as far as possible would be the way to curb this trend of attrition in Civil Engineering Institutes.More than any other assets an Civil Engineering Academy might possess or might not possess, the intellectual capital it has and manages to retain counts when it comes to its academic excellence.Curiously, while it is extremely hard to the point of being impossible to gauge this intellectual capital, it is quiet easy to goad the faculty towards excelling themselves in this crucial area.
The important aspect to remember here is the attitude and mindsets of the individuals in working towards merit. And 'Job Satisfaction' is an important aspect for consideration in this regard. The most important aspect of 'Job Satisfaction' would be freedom to perform and incentives for results that an individual Preceptor and Professor is providing or capable of providing the institution with. The individual abilities of faculty should be assessed, mentored and monitored with the use of appropriate metrics and should be utilized where they could perform better. For instance while a faculty member with a tendency for research should be facilitated with the means for his research, another one with better teaching abilities should be vested with responsibilities of academic improvement. And above all an Engineering Institute of excellence always would be an 'Equal Opportunity Employer',where the avenues of growth and opportunity are provided based on merit rather than any other considerations of ideological and biological proximity to the people in power.Another aspect is that of the faculty being given priority interaction with experts from Industry, while encouraging result oriented research attitude in them.As much as the institution provides support for the 'Research' efforts of its Lecturers, it also needs to provide them avenues of providing consultation to industries and projects allowing them to benefit in knowledge and monetary terms. In fact this aspect of encouraging provision of consultancy to the industry can take the level of co-operation between the Academy and Industry to its pinnacle, as all concerned in the process happen to benefit apart from the students who would be able to watch, participate and gain first hand knowledge of the process.
It could thus be safely concluded that more than anything, people oriented approach in dealing with the issue of 'Industry - Academy' interface alone could pave way to the successful implementation of such efforts. After all, great Academies are judged by great people they have, rather than by great edifices they own.
Doulath Khan M. Mohamed,Deputy Editor,The Masterbuilder
Set up as an Ideal, the Facing of Reality as Honestly and as Cheerfully as Possible.- Dr Karl Menninger
