Engineering education
M.SUBBIAH
The number of students joining the engineering stream is increasing every year and the AICTE has a proposal to permit engineering colleges in some States for conducting a second shift. In this context, engineering teachers have enormous responsibilities in producing competent and readily employable graduates with good communication skills, who would experience a smooth transition from the college environment to corporate life.
Firstly, these students must be made to listen intently and fully assimilate the training imparted to them. While delivering the lectures, teachers should put appropriate questions and initiate lively discussions to engage their attention and sustain their concentration. Even though courses in English and communication are provided in the curriculum, teachers can play a role in improving the proficiency of students in language and communication skills, if they make a conscious effort and proper planning in the choice of words and mode of delivery in teaching technical subjects.
The students, particularly those who have had their school education in the regional medium, will greatly benefit by this approach, since in the eight semester undergraduate programme, they attend not less than 300 hours of lecture per semester.
Innovative strategies
Classroom teaching should be supplemented with intensive laboratory practice and students should be exposed to the latest instruments and experimental techniques. Software simulation tools are now available with amazing computational power for the analysis of a variety of engineering problems. Teachers should familiarise students in the application of tools related to their discipline, through suitably designed value-added programmes even if these topics are not directly mentioned in the curriculum.
Crucial role of teachers
A course on project work is included in the curriculum to train students in independent planning, design and execution of a project chosen by them. Even then, the teachers are expected to examine the current relevance of the topic, verify the required components and monitor their progress, instead of leaving the entire implementation to the students and promote the confidence for self-learning.
They should also share their research and industrial consultancy experience with their wards. The value of participation in co-curricular activities, discipline, hard work, team spirit, professional ethics and commitment to society should also be inculcated through a systematic counselling schedule.
Thus the onus of maintaining a vibrant academic ambience and producing engineering graduates with a sound technical knowledge and communication skill lies on teachers, particularly in the present context of apparent slow-down in campus placement. And only then the increased intake of students will result in enhanced contribution of technical manpower to the nation.
The recent historic achievement of Chandrayaan-1 and the landing of the Moon Impact Probe on the lunar surface with the Indian tricolour painted on it are a great inspiration to our students in embarking on innovative projects with creative ideas and teachers should strive to sustain the enthusiasm by motivation and technical inputs.
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