With the realisation that there are very few success stories of institution-industry linkages in engineering education in the country, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) have joined hands to give an impetus to these linkages and put them on the path to global benchmarking.
This they have decided to do, not by thrusting some new methodologies on the institutions, but by trying to derive the best practices from the leaders and showcasing them to the others, through a survey.
The “AICTE-CII Survey of Industry-linked Engineering Institutions” was launched on June 7 this year exactly for this purpose. It is to “map best practices being followed by institutions and industry, to recognise them and to create a benchmark of quality education in the country.”
Explaining the idea behind the survey, AICTE chairman S.S. Mantha said the survey was to find out the current status of the industry linkages in the country. “We hope to get data and analyse it to find out what the gaps are and how to address them. The parameters of the survey give a broad framework for assessment of quality. Institutions should apply for the survey, considering it only as a form of indexing, and not as a ranking. It is a means to know where an institution stands,” he said.
He cautioned those institutions applying for the survey to be realistic about their strengths and weaknesses. Getting ranked high in the list did not authorise an institution to go above the framework and decide on a different way of governance. “If the college that comes first in the list increases its fee by Rs. 5,000 in the next semester, then the AICTE will take that college to task,” he added.
The AICTE planned to make the survey an annual exercise to ensure that the quality was maintained by institutions. It also planned to take it forward by extending it to management, architecture and pharmacy colleges.
P. Rajendran, chairman, CII National Committee on Higher Education, said the profiles of the top 50 institutions would be displayed in a national publication. Also, the citation, trophy and purse for all the awards would be sponsored by CII member companies.
“Institutions that are not able to make it to the survey this year should use this opportunity to energise the faculty to find out where the institution stood and how to make it ready for the next survey,” he said.
Eligible institutions can log on to the AICTE website with the institute ID to fill in the online questionnaire. Entries are open from June 7 to August 15.
The results of the survey would be announced at the AICTE-CII University-Industry Congress - Fourth Global Higher Education Summit to be held on November 8.
Expressing happiness about the response to the survey, Shalini Sharma, Head - Higher Education, CII, said that in under 15 days of registration, nearly 100 institutions had registered. “Officials would validate the information from the questionnaire and cross-check it with the industries concerned for authentication. Once the scrutiny is done, an eight-member jury, drawn from academia, industry and the judiciary, will select the best based on the parameters,” she said.
Stressing that the exercise was to bring to light the best practices followed by these top institutions, she said it was to showcase them as role models for others to emulate and not to put down any institution. AICTE would hand-hold the institutions in working out the corrective measures that would be required to be put in place to elevate the quality of education.
Eligibility for participation
AICTE-approved engineering institutions and university departments which have been in existence for at least 10 years as on August 1, 2012, and offering bachelor’s degrees in at least three among the six streams of chemical, civil, computer and information technology, electrical, electronics and communication, and mechanical engineering, for at least 10 years as on August 1, 2012.
Parameters of survey
Governance, Curriculum, Faculty, Infrastructure, Services, Entrepreneurship and innovation, Placements
Category of awards
Three awards to overall best engineering institutions: Platinum, Diamond, Gold. Six awards, one under each stream, to best engineering institutions. Eighteen awards, three under each stream, to best engineering faculty.
