India set to produce world’s largest number of engineers

[jamahir]

Back in the days in China, we opened a lot of vocational schools where young people could get the needed training in very specific areas. These vocational school are a level or two below real colleges. But they are very effective in filling the immediate need for education. This approach allows student to pick the education paths that fit their own ability and desire and assures quality meeting expectations more closely.

the senior indian technologist, sam pitroda, also made a similar recommendation last year i think.

he is called "father of indian telecom revolution" because it was under his guidance that landline telephone network spread in the india in the late 80's and until late 90's.

i read a interview of him where he said that students must first be taken into employment, without their final year certificate, put in some years of vocational work and only then be given their certificates.

but i would recommend removing the exams/marks/degree system entirely... for medicine field, another method would have to be found to judge students.

But how do you improve the quality though? Perhaps narrowing down the scope of training is one approach. Things like cutting down the numbers of disciplines, offering different levels of degrees instead of just bachelor, master etc.

you are correct generally.

different engineering fields are further broken down by indian colleges ( to earn money really )... this creates a situation where students become extra-specialists and cannot see beyond the boundary of what their college textbooks showed them.

if you again go through my post# 21 on page 2, you will see that the field of computing in india is cut down in five different fields, which is the wrong way... designing a computer operating system requires the designer to be a generalist who has to look at various situations a operating system can be used and the different faults it may come across/generate... a student who is a specialist in the useless field of "software engineering" or a specialist in "electronics and communication" cannot design a operating system.

No no no.. narrowing down scope is wrong approach.
Some of these guys are way too much comfortable. That's the problem, they are well inside their comfort zone. The problem is not with what is being provided to them. The problem is, they are pretty much assured of a job. No urge for excellence among a very large group. That hampers quality!

^^^

 

[Hindustani78]

That doesn't make the difference, they have to go through vocational training to make them employable. It is not the case in western nations, students are employable from the very beginning, saving valuable resources and time.

It does makes a huge difference because India is having raw material, man power , technology. This will increase the production in all the sectors.

17 crore bank accounts have been opened , people deposited a whopping Rs 20,000 crore in them .

Urban development initiatives - AMRUT, Smart Cities Mission and Housing for All , expected to help create 34 lakh jobs

Digital India can give jobs to five crore plus people.

 

[Styx]

different engineering fields are further broken down by indian colleges ( to earn money really )... this creates a situation where students become extra-specialists and cannot see beyond the boundary of what their college textbooks showed them.

heart surgeons are also extra specialists, as are fighter pilots

 

[nForce]

@jamahir

A fresh graduate out from college is not expected to be 'generalist'. You are setting wrong expectations. But he is expected to be sincere and we expect him to know what he has been taught in 4/6 years.

Every other guy wants to do an MBA...WTF is that ? What will he manage if he doesn't know what it is ?

 

[jamahir]

heart surgeons are also extra specialists, as are fighter pilots

heart surgeons i would called specialists ( and not extra-specialists ) and i imagine their training involves dipping into the other branches too... this would be counter to the engineering fields where each sub-division is isolated from other engineering sub-divisions.

and i did say this...

but i would recommend removing the exams/marks/degree system entirely... for medicine field, another method would have to be found to judge students.

 

[Dungeness]

But how do you improve the quality though? Perhaps narrowing down the scope of training is one approach. Things like cutting down the numbers of disciplines, offering different levels of degrees instead of just bachelor, master etc. Back in the days in China, we opened a lot of vocational schools where young people could get the needed training in very specific areas. These vocational school are a level or two below real colleges. But they are very effective in filling the immediate need for education. This approach allows student to pick the education paths that fit their own ability and desire and assures quality meeting expectations more closely.

I think the definition of Engineer are different in China and In India. In China, only those graduate from 4 years colleges and receive a Bachelor degree on Engineering can be called as an Engineer, and even they have to work as "Assistant Engineer" for at least 3 years, before they can be considered as a real Engineer.

All others students from vocational schools or 2-3 years colleges are considered "Technicians". They can work their way up to become Engineers.

What is important is not the number of "Engineer Titles", but the number of them that can actually do engineering work.

 

[jamahir]

@jamahir

A fresh graduate out from college is not expected to be 'generalist'. You are setting wrong expectations.

but we do not expect that because that is the how the limited education system has surrounded us for almost seven decades.

you, nforce, are personally are involved in creating something but almost the entire rest of output from india's engineering institutes ( whether "srm university" or the iiit's ) are merely cogs in the stagnant wheel of the indian services industry.

But he is expected to be sincere and we expect him to know what he has been taught in 4/6 years.

yes, but he won't come up with inventions.

 

[Styx]

heart surgeons i would called specialists ( and not extra-specialists ) and i imagine their training involves dipping into the other branches too... this would be counter to the engineering fields where each sub-division is isolated from other engineering sub-divisions.

and i did say this...

still not sure a heart surgeon would be the right person to prescribe a pill for psychosis, or operate on a bad case of brain trauma.

Grade them how you want, just as long as only the best get through, we need all our systems to be meritocracy based, basically.. each according to his ability, and set very high standards for required ability.

sifarish, babu culture, lazy people, so much red tape, all vestiges of socialist India, this must all be removed like you would a malignant tumor

 

[nForce]

yes, but he won't come up with inventions.

It's not the 1930s any more for physics, its not the 70s/80s any more for computers. Nowadays, it takes substantial amount of investment for R&D, for most of the things that you do. Well, in my experience, you dont always have to do something ground breaking. You just have to have a habit of doing it right. Ideas will then come out naturally.

 

[jamahir]

still not sure a heart surgeon would be the right person to prescribe a pill for psychosis, or operate on a bad case of brain trauma.

i don't really know what a heart surgeon's training involves but i was talking about the familiarization and understanding at reasonably deep level of the other systems in the human body that i imagine being taught to them.

Grade them how you want, just as long as only the best get through, we need all our systems to be meritocracy based, basically.. each according to his ability, and set very high standards for required ability.

certainly, and the understanding of "merit" we must change from being related to exam marks to real world contribution to humanity.

sifarish, babu culture, lazy people, so much red tape, all vestiges of socialist India, this must all be removed like you would a malignant tumor

1. what socialist india??

rajiv gandhi saw pakistan as buffer against ussr

2. how are private "educational institutes" any better compared to some mistake the bureaucracy might make?? does the private "lovely professional university" with its 600-acre campus have any credible output?? or has infosys's 1000-room training center contributed to computing??

 

[Skull and Bones]

@jamahir

A fresh graduate out from college is not expected to be 'generalist'. You are setting wrong expectations. But he is expected to be sincere and we expect him to know what he has been taught in 4/6 years.

Every other guy wants to do an MBA...WTF is that ? What will he manage if he doesn't know what it is ?

Actually, ideally it should be the opposite. A fresh graduate, without any work experience should have a generalist approach for any specialization. With added experience, the tunneling specialization thing comes in.

 

[nForce]

Actually, ideally it should be the opposite. A fresh graduate, without any work experience should have a generalist approach for any specialization. With added experience, the tunneling specialization thing comes in.

from where he is coming from, I presume he means a fresh graduate will be able to see and relate things holistically. That's something that comes from experience. I will be content with someone who has got the basics right.

 

[Skull and Bones]

It does makes a huge difference because India is having raw material, man power , technology. This will increase the production in all the sectors.

17 crore bank accounts have been opened , people deposited a whopping Rs 20,000 crore in them .

Urban development initiatives - AMRUT, Smart Cities Mission and Housing for All , expected to help create 34 lakh jobs

Digital India can give jobs to five crore plus people.

The raw material, and man power is generally in terms of cheap man power, it doesn't take a Btech to assemble iPhones in Foxconn. And for technology, there will always be dependence on western nations if the quality of education is not improved. As a mediocre graduate in a top US university, I have faced the struggle, so I'm well qualified to point out the difference of education approach in developed countries, and India.

The bank accounts, and digital India doesn't answer the fundamental question regarding steps to improve basic education.

 

[Skull and Bones]

from where he is coming from, I presume he means a fresh graduate will be able to see and relate things holistically. That's something that comes from experience. I will be content with someone who has got the basics right.

Exactly, holistic approach can never be expected from a fresh graduate, but he should be open to investigate in different ideas. Someone with a PhD in nano-electronics will have issues investigating in communication systems. But a fresh graduate in electrical or electronics engineering, it should be much easier for him to investigate equally in different specializations, before expanding his knowledge in a definite field.

 

[jamahir]

It's not the 1930s any more for physics, its not the 70s/80s any more for computers. Nowadays, it takes substantial amount of investment for R&D, for most of the things that you do.

like i had said in the narayana murthy thread, it doesn't take huge funding to achieve something technological... for example, designing a operating system requires just a ordinary computer, a book on the relevant processor, a white board, marker pens, cups of tea, books, pens and questioning minds.

Well, in my experience, you dont always have to do something ground breaking. You just have to have a habit of doing it right. Ideas will then come out naturally.

i agree there... for example, last year, there was a indian young man ( a school or college student ) who had entered his developed device into google's invention competition... the device was a really useful machine that could be fixed to the throat of people whose voice couldn't be heard at normal levels ( via disease or old age ) and this device could amplify the voice... such devices were already available but this young man found a way to produce it a lot cheaper.

his entry did not get through, sadly, and also sad was the fact that he had to enter his device into a foreign company's competition to bring publicity and money, whereas some indian bank should have funded him at first priority instead of giving long-term interest-based loans to some typical jobnik to buy a flat at some silly apartment complex.