IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao has suggested that colleges incorporate a ‘Practice School’ option, that exists in Germany, to allow students to practice concepts learnt in classrooms in real-life situations.
The Minister said the practice school also sensitises students to the ways of workplace behaviour by assigning time-bound projects as in a company, and the JNTU-H was actively considering this.
His comments are significant in the context of his opinion that IT for 20 years has been Information Technology but now IT is Intelligence Technology and the time has now come to redefine it. The practice school can be of six or 12 months duration, he said.
He expressed the views while addressing engineering education experts at the inauguration of 7th International Conference on ‘Transformations in Engineering Education’ held at Anurag Group of Institutions (AGI) campus near Ghatkesar on Monday.
The IT Minister hoped that the colleges would kick-start this concept from the next academic year itself and suggested the gathering to seek help of founder and executive director, Cyient India Ltd, B.V.R. Mohan Reddy, who is also the honorary Consul of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Stating that the Telangana government was committed to quality in all stages of education, he reminded how Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao took a tough call of getting all the 220 engineering colleges inspected to maintain standards.
He said when industry complained of lack of skill-sets among engineering students, the government came out with the Telangana Academy of Skills and Knowledge (TASK). In the past five years, TASK reached out to 680 colleges, trained 5,070 faculty members and 2.9 lakh students in various skill-sets, he informed.
Mr. Rao also announced that TASK will expand its footprints to Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities like Warangal, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Khammam and Nalgonda soon.
Palla Rajeshwar Reddy, MLC and Chairman of Anurag Group of Institutions, said the college believes in building a strong nation by delivering better engineers. He said the Anurag group would soon be a private university.
Michael Milligan, executive director and CEO, Abet, and Education Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy also spoke. AICTE deputy director Madhukar Waware; IUCEE founder Krishna Vedula, IFEES secretary general Hans Hoyer and IIT-Hyderabad former director U.B. Desai were among those present.
