Strategies to Improve Engineering Education and Teaching-Learning Pedagogy in India

International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 04 Issue: 08 | Aug -2017 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072
© 2017, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 5.181 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 816
Strategies to Improve Engineering Education and Teaching-Learning
Pedagogy in India
S.Surenderkumar1, K.M.Priya2
1Assistant Professor, Department of EEE, Vidya Vikas Institute of Engineering and Technology,
Mysuru, Karnataka, India,
2BE Graduate, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan Engineering College,
Trichy, TamilNadu, India
-----------------------------------------------------------------------***-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Abstract–This paper proposes strategies to improve the
quality of students pursuing engineering in India. The effective
action required for improving technical education to make it
effective not only to creamy layer students but also to the slow
learning students pursuing education in engineering
institutions are recommended in the paper. The current
scenario of engineering colleges and learning trend of students
is briefed. The idea of the paper to improvise technical
education in student perspective is discussed which involves,
activity based teaching-learning pedagogy. The idea of
increasing to five years degree, which improves learning
opportunities for slow learning students, is also proposed.
Key words - Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE),
Lifelong learning (LLL), Project Based Learning, Pedagogy
1. INTRODUCTION
Technical education in India officially got thrust in 20th
century with the set up of Constitution of Technical
Education Committee of the Central Advisory Board of
Education (CABE) in 1943 [1]. Later in 1945 the All India
Council of technical Education (AICTE), a statutory authority
was formed in order to uphold the standard of technical
education.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development launched
in December, 2002 the “Technical Education Quality
Improvement Programme of Government of India (TEQIP)”
which aims to upscale and support ongoing efforts in
improving quality of technical education and enhancing
existing capacities of the institutions [1]. AICTE has taken
many initiatives to improve quality of technical education in
the country [3].
The paper is organized as follows. Section 1 gives a brief
introduction about the paper. Section 2 describes the current
position of engineering education in India. Section 3 shows
the factors affecting the quality of technical education.
Section 4 states the proposed ideas to improve engineering
education. Finally, section 5 is the conclusion.
2. CURRENT POSITION OF ENGINEERING
EDUCATION IN INDIA
2.1 Increasing number of colleges and students’
intake
Engineering and Medicine have long been the two most
sought after careers for the students. However, these days
engineering seems to be gaining ground. Students find
engineering easy compared to medicine. Four years of
engineering study at a reputed college fetches a decent job or
might choose to go abroad for higher studies. Figure 2.1
shows the enrolment in Private and Government College [5].
Fig- 2.1: Enrolments in Private and Government Colleges [5]
India produces around 1.5 million engineers every year.
Of these, almost 40 per cent who search for a job for a year,
while around 22 per cent take almost two years before
getting a job offer, according to HR firms. According to a
Nasscom’s Perspective 2020 study, industry is already facing
a shortage of employable talent and companies are hiring
people who lack skills, but are trainable. An average
company invests 16 weeks to train one employee in areas
such as technical skills, soft skills, company orientation and
process-specific domain skills. As a result, the training and
recruitment cost of technology services companies has
raised steadily in the last few years.

2.2 Students Employability status
With the help of ranks of colleges provided by realistic
public surveys, top 100 colleges are separated from the rest
of the institutions for comparison. As per the brief report [4],
the employability status of the graduated students is shown
in the table 2.1.
Table -2.1: Employability Percentage [4]
JOB TYPE
TOP 100
COLLEGES
OTHER
COLLEGES
IT Products 20.23% 3.34%
IT Services 40.98% 17.40%
Design
Engineer
25.41% 6.08%
Sales Engineer 38.85% 18.64%
The above table shows that the employability status is
not that good in top colleges and very poor in other colleges.
From this status, it is evident that unemployment is more in
technical education which needs to be improved by
implementing new strategies. Also the best utilization of
existing methods is required to improve technical education.
Now-a-days the expectation of students is an immediate
job, but they need to be aware of their talents, interests,
strengths and weakness to be successful. Engineering studies
is a dream for many students, as the field is lively and
interesting where they can earn more. As per the press
release on GATE 2015 results [6], released by IITK the
statistics as shown in the table 2.2, the pass percentage
shows the ability of the students and the quality of the
knowledge they had gained.
Table -2.2: GATE 2015 Result Vs GATE 2014 Result [6]
Details GATE 2015 GATE 2014
Total Registered
candidates
9,27,580 10,33,625
Total Candidates
Appeared
8,04,463 8,89,156
Total Candidates
qualified
1,21,060 1,49,694
Pass % 15.05% 16.84%
Educators and the students require awareness of latest
teaching-learning techniques specified by AICTE, the method
of Mobile Education, Blended Learning and Lifelong learning.
Blended Learning refers to a mixing of different learning
environments. The phrase has many specific meanings based
upon the context in which it is used. Blended learning gives
learners and teachers a potential environment to learn and
teach more effectively.
Students must understand the concept of Lifelong
learning (LLL), which is "lifelong, voluntary, and self-
motivated" pursuit of knowledge for either personal or
professional reasons. As such, it enhances social inclusion,
active citizenship and personal development, also
competitiveness and employability. The term recognizes that
learning is not confined to childhood or the classroom, but
takes place throughout life and in a range of situations.
During the last fifty years, constant scientific and
technological innovation and change had had a profound
effect on learning needs and styles. Learning can no longer
be divided into a place and time to acquire knowledge
(school) and a place and time to apply the knowledge
acquired (the workplace). Instead, learning can be seen as
something that takes place on an on-going basis from our
daily interactions with others and with the world around us.
2.3 Current Challenges in Engineering
i. The efforts to improve the quality of education in
Indian institutions is challenging because many institutions
cannot compete with few high end institutions in terms of
resources at their control.
ii.
iii. Derange in salaries and benefits of the teaching
personnel. The local cost would have to be borne through
enhanced fees from students making most of it unavailable
to ordinary citizens. As the teachers are the primary source
for creating such practices therefore their personal views are
collected through prearranged survey questions from the
two institutes [2].
iv.
v. Teachers play a major role in improving the
education and so life of every student. The number of
dedicated faculties dropped off and the view of teachers
about the profession has become just a job for salary, thus
lacking in social responsibility. Learning and updating in
education and technology is very essential for the teachers.
Available time for the faculties for self improvement has
gone down due to more clerical works given to them to be
completed from time to time.
3. FACTORS AFFECTING THE QUALITY OF
TECHNICAL EDUCATION
3.1 Quality of students admitted
Most of the students and their parents choose
Engineering as their relatives or neighbors have suggested,
but not because of the interest to learn the technology. The

students joining engineering colleges from rural background,
lack in communication skills as they have completed
schooling in their respective state languages. Those are
usually inhibited in asking questions in class rooms.
Therefore, faculty should be always accessible for their
clarifications [2].
The student’s expectation in education became marks
oriented so that, quality and skills are not up to current real
life situations. Practical learning from real life experiences
should be taught along with the subjects. Ultimate aim of
human life is to be peaceful and happy in any situation.
Subjects like “Moral science and Human Values” should be
taught as a subject with the existing curriculum.
3.2 Existing trend in teaching
Traditional teaching method is followed by most of the
teachers using brick and mortar teaching method which is
outdated. With availability of online facilities, these days,
using black board and chalk method of teaching became
obsolete and the students are not interested in being passive,
listening for the whole hour. When the materials are
available online, the students no more need to take notes in
the class.
The research facilities and industry ready teachers are in
scarcity and graduates of both Bachelors and Masters are
lacking industry required skills. Also the traditional teaching
learning methodology is outdated and best methods are to
be identified and standardized to improve the required skills
of the teachers and students.
3.3 Existing curricula and syllabi
Affiliated colleges bundled into a Technical University are
choking the education stream [3]. Freedom of enquiry
required for educating young minds is totally missing, and
feedback from industries regarding the curriculum is not
open to comment for any updates. Some core companies in
Mechanical and Electrical stream very rarely recruit fresh
engineers because of lacking in skills and direct
understanding of the technology used in the industries and
training time and cost of the company. Though the fresh
engineers may be trained in the industry, still it is risky to
involve them to work in complex machinery and electrical
systems.
4. PROPOSED IDEAS TO IMPROVE ENGINEERING
EDUCATION
4.1 Improving the learning trend of students
The ability of the slow learners could be taken in to
account and a separate curriculum can be introduced for the
below average scorers as a second grade curriculum, so that
teaching and learning speed can be reduced and the number
of years of study can be increased in order to reach the
understanding capacity of fast learning students. By doing
this, stress and work load of those students can be reduced,
improving their knowledge slowly. Because, it is not like a
competition where only 3 persons win prizes, but it is life
and career for every person. Some may score high and others
may score very less or may fail. They need more time to
learn, however everyone has to survive. So chance and time
can be given for slow learners to pick up and pass in studies
and career too.
A change in the curricula and syllabi is required, to make
it current, forward looking, and dynamic [3]. It has been
proposed that provisions required to be made for slow
learners and students coming from the deprived sections of
the society. While going about it the following are essential.
This paper proposes that, Engineering Colleges could be
categorized as follows:
A).Group I– Colleges with advanced facilities
B).Group II – Colleges with required facilities
C).Group III –Colleges with required facilities
Group I colleges offering Masters and Doctoral programs
on their own. The creamy layer students usually opt for
Group I top colleges. The ‘Group II’ colleges could be
confined to offering Bachelor and master programs only but
with a separate curriculum and ‘Group III’ colleges meant for
slow learning students. The following are the proposed ideas
of classifications shown for engineering course.
A). Group I - Advanced curriculum
*4 years B.E/B.Tech
B). Group II - Moderate curriculum
*4 years B.E/B.Tech
C). Group III - Moderate curriculum
*5 years B.E/B.Tech,
*4 Theory Subjects per semester &
*2 Labs per semester
The Group III, moderate curriculum is proposed
especially for the slow learners. As the slow learning
students require less workload and more time to grasp the
information, they can prefer to join the Group III colleges.
This would be very good alternative so that 100% students
could be ensured to acquire the skills for the industries,
higher studies, and entrepreneurs.
4.2 Educating the Educators
A teacher should be like an ocean of knowledge where
the students can acquire more and more knowledge.
Therefore, it has fundamental significance to train the college
teachers' technical capacity and resource capacity. A better

idea would be to send the faculty members to industries to
get trained in the required technology to transfer the
knowledge to the students. The benefits of such a format
would be valid for students to get placed in respective
industry required technology learnt.
The teachers have to identify the gaps in their teaching-
learning process and implement effective teaching pedagogy.
It is imminent to explore ways to reflect the value of teacher
education in technical skills training, renovating training
results, making teachers actively apply the knowledge and
skills learned.
Fig- 4.1: Qualification of a Teacher
To achieve a better teaching quality, a standard
certification of teaching methodology should be made
compulsory for the teachers. The block diagram in the figure
4.1 shows the flow to be followed for teacher’s selection
process. The certification should be based on performance of
theory examination and teaching demonstration. The latest
teaching-learning methods need to be included in the
certification course contents.
4.3 Teaching-Learning Process
We can no longer assume all students will achieve being
taught the same way, and hence new teaching practices are
required. The students should be taught about improving the
listening skills and notes making methods. Also, the faculties
should follow the same methodology to make the class
interesting and give sufficient time for the students to make
notes or hints.
Fig- 4.2: Proposed Collaborative Learning method
Some of emerging teaching learning methods include
collaborative learning [8], blended learning [9], and project
based learning, etc. The proposed method for Collaborative
Learning is as shown in the Figure 4.2. This method starts
with group or cluster formation. The topics are to be taught
in traditional method and using projectors. When a topic is
covered, the students are allowed to discuss with the group
members related to the topic. If any doubts after discussions,
are to be cleared by the faculty.
The figure 4.3 shows the proposed method for blended
learning. In this method, the students use the online
resources and learn the given topic. Then they are allowed to
discuss with the group members related to the prepared
topic and can clear their doubts with the faculty.
Fig- 4.3: Proposed Blended Learning method
The process to be involved to implement the above
teaching methods is
i. Cluster formation
ii. Toppers and slow learners mixed in each cluster
iii. Allowing to discuss with group members
iv. Student feedback and Result analysis
v. Identifying gaps and continuous improvements
The “Show and Tell” technique is another form of the
“Practical Examples” technique [7]. However, in this
technique the role of the student is reversed to that of a
teacher, thereby changing their perspective of the problem.
4.4 Proposed co-curricular activities
In education, we are witnessing the shift from teacher-
centered education to student-centered education. Along
with the technical skills, industries require graduates with
managerial skills too. The courses in university
undergraduate curriculum are outcome based and
implementing the latest Bloom’s Taxonomy on training
students in a specific, and often specialized, skill or
knowledge.
i. Implementing project lab From II year onwards
ii. Setup Entrepreneurship cell and incubation center
iii. Collaborative research projects involving students
UG
PG / PHD
LECTURER TRAINING
CERTIFICATION
Cluster
Formation
Discussion
within the
group
Clearing
doubts with
the Faculty
Individual Online
Learning
Discussion within
the group
Groupwise
Assignments &
Seminars

5. CONCLUSIONS
Thus, for a real challenge of improving technical
education, we have to make sure that the educational system
is truly aware of the psychology of the slow learning
student’s experience. Work hard to prevent the peer ridicule
that too often results from academic excellence. Now, choice
based credit system is a very good initiative which is
encouraging to students to choose their interested subjects,
but as proposed in this paper, the number of subjects can be
reduced for the ease of slow learners. Also, apart from the
regular lab exercises, application related designs can be
included in the laboratory with the teaching learning
process. There are many other methods to improve the
teaching-learning experience, but not limited. Innovations on
methods of teaching, considering the different criteria like
analysis on students learning style, environment, available
resources, etc are much required considering the future
technology. All the faculties need training on course
curriculum development, instructional design methods, etc
for encouraging active learning and outcome based
education.
REFERENCES
[1] “Report of the Central Advisory Board of Education
(CABE) Committee” Ministry of Human Resource
Development, Department of Secondary and Higher
Education, Government of India
[2] Seema Shah “Best Practices in Teaching and Learning of
Technical Institutes in India”, IACSIT International
Journal of Engineering and Technology, Vol.2, No.4,
August 2010 ISSN: 1793-8236
[3] “Innovative Practices In Technical Education
Institutions” pages 277 – 287, All India Council for
Technical Education, New Delhi
[4] Aspiring minds “National Employability Report-
Engineers Annual Report 2016”
[5] “All India Survey On Higher Education”, Ministry of
Human Resource Development, Department of
Secondary and Higher Education, Government of India.
[6] Prof. Sounak Choudhury, Organizing Chairman, GATE
2015 Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. Press
release on Gate results 2015 by IITK
[7] Prabhu Balaraman, Muneer Khan, Mark Fleming, David
Nowicki, Joe Lacey, 1996 “Strategies for Effective
Teaching A Handbook for Teaching Assistants”
[8] Chris Fellin, Aigerim Galyamova, Lorraine Hossain and
Rachel Putnik “Motivation and Focus in Collaborative
Learning” SC 297C Learning Sciences Group Project.
[9] Dr. Aline Sarria and Elizabeth Carrandi Molina, Broward
College “An Innovation Sensation: Shifting Charter
Schools from traditional to Blended Learning Models”.
BIOGRAPHIES
Surenderkumar.S completed BE (EEE)
in the year 2004 in Maharaja
Engineering College, Coimbatore, TN,
India, worked as a PCB CAM Engineer
for 3 years, and then completed ME
(Applied Electronics) in the year 2011
in Anna University Regional Centre,
Coimbatore. Working as an Assistant
Professor from 2011. Interested in
microelectronics, innovative teaching
methods and student-centric, outcome
based Education.
K.M.Priya completed BE (BME) in the
year 2012 in Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan
Engineering College, Trichy, TN, India,
is a freelancing writer, Interested in
Bio-medical assist devices and
innovative teaching methods.

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