VALUE ADDITION: Students learn foreign languages to supplement their academic attainments. Photo: K. Gajendran

When students enter a massive university system that has 220 affiliated colleges following the same syllabus, curriculum and even timetable, is there scope for innovation and competition?

Anna University's engineering education framework seems to indicate that this is a challenge that some colleges have met. The nearly 50,000-strong student population in the B.E and B.Tech courses may not have a uniformly strong set of options in all the colleges, but many are the beneficiaries of innovation of a high order.

The value addition that is taking place in many colleges seeking to innovate is in the form of encouragement to research, opportunities to acquire additional skills such as personality development and hands-on learning experiences in the industrial marketplace to which the students must turn after graduation. Here is a sampling of the innovations implemented by some of the colleges to provide the "extras."

Close links with the industry is the watchword, says R. Rudramoorthy, principal-in-charge, PSG College of Technology. "Our institute is attached to the PSG Industrial Institute and PSG foundry. Students and faculty can walk in any time observe the industrial processes."

The Training department of the industrial institute along with the faculty plans out a rigorous schedule of training for all students to strengthen industry — institute interaction and consultancy work. ``Students observe the actual industry problems solved by our faculty."

The Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at PSG is setting up a new centre for excellence in switchgear technology in collaboration with L&T — another facility to help students interact with industry professionals and train on the latest equipment.

S. Balamurugan, the Executive Director of Technology Business Incubator, a joint venture set up by Kongu Engineering College, Perundurai, and the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, to assist the entrepreneurs says, "Students get involved with the faculty in developing cutting edge models here along with the entrepreneurs."

Focus on extra-curricular

The best years of life, you can't be just studying. After all, industry needs problem-solvers and creative minds. R. Prabhakar, Coimbatore Institute of Technology (CIT) and Sandwich Polytechnic College, says "Each department has a technical association that organises quizzes, personality development programmes and group discussions. The 20-odd student clubs keep organising inter-college festivals and talent spot nights."

Across the State, managements emphasize on developing students' soft skills, especially communication abilities which institutions foster and develop through specially equipped language labs. Others such as Velammal Engineering and Meenakshi Sundararajan Engineering have foreign language courses including Japanese, French and German.

Add-on courses

Dr. Mahalingam College of Engineering and Technology, Pollachi, has a range of courses from animation to CISCO certifications to give students that extra edge during placement, says K.P. Dhanabalakrishnan, Training and Placement Officer of the College. Velammal Engineering in Chennai provides students extracomputing and core engineering skills such as courses in signal processing, Networking or embedded system, CCNA or C++ classes after normal college hours. ``They can attend personality development and business English courses," he adds.

Recently, Velammal signed an MoU with Wipro to create an academy that would give in-campus training to students shortlisted by the IT major.

Another sample: this time it is St. Joseph's College of Engineering, south of Chennai. "Every alternate day, students have to stay 90 minutes after college to pick up and polish extra skills.''

Another group has the option to undergo training in the Associate Bureau of Higher Studies (ABHS) that trains students in IELTS, TOEFL or for GRE/GMAT.

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