Mumbai: Seemingly outdated and unplanned
technical education system has been one of the reasons for
India`s unimproved higher education system in the field of
science, engineering and technology, experts have said.
"Resuscitating the Indian higher education system
necessitates considerable ingenuity and prudence on the part
of its administrators and planners... to stimulate wider
discussion and introspection within Indian academic and
government circles," Vikramaditya Yadav, a technologist with
the MIT, USA and Ganapati Yadav, VC of Institute of Chemical
Technology, Mumbai have said in an article.
The article -- `Fuelling the Indian Economic Engine by
re-tooling Indian technology education` -- has been published
in the latest issue of scientific journal `Current Science`.
The current system of technical education has failed
to give solutions to major problems like drinking water,
electricity, absence of civic planning, rising unemployment,
and disparate regional development, they said.
"It is believed that by selectively emulating the
American model of higher education, notably technical
education, India could usher in hitherto unimaginable waves of
development that could vastly improve the standard of living
of her citizens," the duo said in the article.
"Improving a nation`s technical education system is
directly correlated to its economic health and the social
development of its population. One of the reasons for India`s
failings and America`s dominance has been the outdated and
ailing technical education system of the former and the
excellence of the latter," the technologists opined.
A revolutionary transformation is required in the
manner in which our scientists and engineers are educated,
they said while quoting that IITs and the IIMs are modelled
along the lines of European, notably British universities.
Dogmatic bureaucracy and conditions stifling
innovation have percolated in most of the Indian universities
and this has all but killed original research in most
departments, they said.
PTI
