In India Technical Education has been drastically growing from the past few decades. Previously only a hand full of students were able to access this technical education. But in today’s scenario, Technical Education is one of the most popular choices of lakh of students.  The southern most states of India accounts to have more than 69 per cent from the total count of technical education. Last year around 8.19 lakh student enrolled in 2,297 engineering colleges all across the country. In the present academic year, Tamil Nadu alone has around 85 new self-financing colleges which were approved by the AICTE. The total number of engineering colleges adds up to 444. Andhra Pradesh is having the highest number of engineering colleges which add up to 523. In other states like UP, Rajasthan and Orissa jointly add up for just 14 per cent of India’s technical colleges. This regional disproportion and quality are at present the serious apprehension of the authority concerned.

All India Council for Technical Education

India has established vast infrastructure facilities with regard to the Technical education. This has provided the country with a niche advantage in the globalized economic environment. The technical education will aid for the growth of a countries economy and also in national growth. In the past 25 years the growth rate of technical education was phenomenal. There was a huge rate of increase in the total number of institution from 158 in the year 1980 to 1,346 in the year 2005. This has also increased the intake of students in the Engineering degree level from a minuscule of 28,500 to around 4, 52,260 in the same period. At present the total intake has grown to 8, 19,000 in the last year. The manifold boost in the intake and augmentation in the total number of technical institution has resulted in a major increase of pressure on the excellence of educations of engineering and technology field.

This can be easily seen in the obvious increase of courses being offered in these institutions. The engineering courses have almost quadrupled recently. Previously there were just three basic branches in the engineering which were commonly known as Civil, Electrical and Mechanical. These courses were on the basis of Soil, Coil and Oil branches. At present these 3 major branches have been stretched and expanded to 41 courses in under graduation alone and more than 100 courses in Post graduation. Some of the latest and very popular areas include Biotechnology, Nanotechnology etc. Environmental Engineering, Ocean Engineering and Climate Change etc are few other courses in relation to the advancement of the branches in engineering.

To perk up the technical education and arrive at global standards there are certain areas which require immediate attention.

Significance of Technical Education

Education is an imperative feature for each person in a country. It has a very important role which aid in changing the gaze of a nation. No country will get in the path of success unless and until every person is educated enough to meet the challenges which might occur. Education is the only means through which a person gets a realization about himself and the future goals.

Fundamentally, Education is alienated into three clusters. The first part teaches and educates a person about the concerns of the society, which is commonly known to be as the Social Education. The second will uplifts ones personality through Spiritual Education and the third one deal with the professionalism and is known as the Vocational Education. Technical Education comes beneath the branch of Vocational Education. This deals with different areas like trade, commerce, agriculture and also medicine and engineering.

Global Certifying Standards

The inclusion of large number of manufacturing industry in the 1990’s and the addition of IT industries in the late 1990’s has generated a huge demand for quality and skilled engineers in large quality. As a matter of fact, the professional services from skilled engineering professionals are required highly for the planning and execution of ideas.

The main factor which acts as the corner stone’s for success in similar practical oriented courses are the infrastructure and faculty strength. By getting official approval by national agencies like NBA will definitely helps in ensuring quality of these educational institutions. At present the standards and procedures are not as rigorous as that of international agencies like ABET, IET etc. Consequently a widespread authorization system has to be changed for setting up unvarying global standards for the promotion of global community.

Ethical framework - The invisible element

A professional course is intended for crafting professionals, whose awareness and behavior possibly will be trusted at face value. Ethics and proper principles like self-discipline, dedication, temperament and truthfulness are as important as intellectual vividness. It is paradoxical that ethics, which are supposed to be part of the personality and line of work, is persisted and passed on through additional special lectures and add-on courses. This is even followed for the most experienced engineers even now. Students are clearly unaware of such standards and imparting it is more intricate as compared to passing on knowledge. It has to be taken in from excellent teachers and senior colleagues who are supposed to serve as role models. The administration and management of all educational institutions along with authorization bodies and Councils must make certain the system has been installed this feature in position.

Facilitation for the deprived category

India being an agrarian country, around 70 % of the nation’s population is in the rural areas. Most of these areas are deprived from the advanced facilities available in the urban settings. This results in the lower rate of reach of students in to the Technical Education. This divide of rural and urban must be eliminated by facilitation. The education system must give serious attention to the language and communication skills along with various cultural and practice in these areas through molding methods.

Technical Education

Major challenges in Technical education

Some of the major challenges faced in the field of Technical education include implementation of a science based modernizing engineering environment in the institutions. This includes creating technology savvy campuses, using Information Communication Technology (ICT) to augment teaching effectiveness. The ICT will also help to develop a knowledge centric learning environment. Developing a research centric culture at all level of education is another major issue.

There should be a proper system which will tie together the power of mind and the power connectivity to foster talent of engineering students. Another major concern faced in the technical education sector is developing faculty competence for enhanced teaching and creative research. The institutions which offer technical education must be capable of offering the right mix of knowledge, skills and competencies as to deal with the presently rigid core specialties and also increase autonomy.

The future of Technical education

The future of technical education must be in harmony by providing equal weightage to science, engineering and technology.  The vision of the technical education must be to develop logical thinking, intellectual analysis and research pertaining to industrial development. Practical utility of the academic knowledge is necessary for technical education and institutions must give priority to industrial training and entrepreneurship development. Students must be job-supplier relatively than job-seekers.

In conclusion, Technical Education in India is at the doorstep and could do with major reforms as for building a trustworthy and reliable professional workforce which has to put together the country for the wellbeing of future generations.