IIT to run course to train engineering college faculty

Thousands of untrained faculty in engineering colleges in India would soon get a chance to obtain a degree in engineering and education from Indian Institutes of Technology without joining the premier technical education institute or leaving his or her job.

Updated on: Dec 30, 2011, 22:45:35 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Thousands of untrained faculty in engineering colleges in India would soon get a chance to obtain a degree in engineering and education from Indian Institutes of Technology without joining the premier technical education institute or leaving his or her job.

Shortage of faculty had forced large number of engineering colleges to hire fresh engineering graduates as faculty. But, these graduates are not trained to educate and found to lack in skill in orienting students towards research, leading to poor quality of engineers.

For this endearing problem, the government has found solution – a new part-time Masters’ degree in Engineering Education to be conducted by the IITs. The course is aimed to focus more on research aspects of engineering than just clearing the examination.

“The degree, designed for faculty from engineering colleges will be conducted online, through live video lectures the National Knowledge Network, thus eliminating the need for participants to be relieved of normal teaching duties,” says a planning committee headed by Department of Higher Education secretary Vibha Puri Das.

The ministry estimates to train six to seven thousand young faculty members each year. Training so many will require skills of 1,500 faculty of IITs and other institutions. The teaching for the course will be carried out in the evening and during weekends.

In addition to getting a dual degree, the government believes that the IIT faculty will able to identify and motivate many of these young candidates to pursue a

Part-time Ph.D programme. On its own, the IITs are also expected to produce a Ph.D scholar for every department in the next five years.

In all, the government estimate is that about 30,000 faculty members will be trained in the 12th five-year plan period starting from April 2012.

The government also plans to start a new three year programme leading to a dual Masters Degree – a M.Tech and a Masters degree in educational skills and pedagogy. The course will help the post graduate students from IITs to take up teaching in engineering colleges, where the demand for faculty is expected to rise by 70 % by 2020.

The number of students in technical education in India has increased to over two million from less than a million in 2007-08. To make the future students employable, the government wants the industry to run a pilot project to train engineering faculty in colleges.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.