 PREAMBLE

1.1 India's pursuit of industrialisation in the past four decades has provided a major stimulus to technical education and training in the country. The number of training institutions and trainees has risen significantly. The network of institutes of technical education available today includes six Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), which are institutes of national importance providing facilities for higher technical education and research. These are followed by a chain of Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs) set up jointly by the Central and State Government, Technical Universities at the national level, and a large number of state and private engineering colleges.

1.2 India's industrial output has risen substantially. More importantly, the composition of industrial product has vastly diversified in the past four decades. All these facts provide for an urgent need for upgrading technical education and justification for related efforts and investment.

1.3 Technical training is, however, not a success story all the way. There are acute shortcomings, especially in respect of 'quality' as acknowledged by periodic official assessments. The latest available assessment on Technical and Management Education, by Director Technical, Ministry of Human Resource Development, pinpoints that though many schemes of quality improvement in technical education have been initiated during the successive Five Year Plans, "Government will have to play an active role to make good the past, and take deliberate steps to improve the quality of technical education at all levels".

1.4 Related to 'quality' of technical education is the crucial question of an effective link between end-users, i.e., industry and technical education system. But such a link has not materialised. According to the report of the Eighth Five Year Plan Working Group on Technical and Management Education, "Institutions- Industry collaboration has been the theme of numerous studies, discussions, seminars and conferences. Dialogues between industry and academia have been taking place, but it is not clear if both sides do an effective job of communicating. Promotion of institutions-industry interaction ... is an important goal to be pursued vigorously."

1.5 A look at Indian industry also provides worrisome, albeit indirect evidence of inadequacies in the quality of technical education. Productivity of Indian industry is low even in enterprises set up with foreign collaboration. As a result, Indian products face considerable constraints in overseas markets. Though the domestic market has been captive due to policy and administrative restrictions on imports, the high cost and inadequacies in quality of materials and machines have added to the woes of domestic producers. A comparison of productivity in India with selected developing countries in the region *1, is a source of great concern.

1 Vision India 2000 AD, CII, 1995.

1.6 A recent study titled" Industrial Progress in the Nineties; Issues & Approaches, by the Bombay Chamber of Commerce & Industry (sponsored by ANZ Grindlays Bank)' also points out that:

"Productivity levels in India have remained stagnant. The growth in productivity in the period 1960-65 was negligible during 1965-75, negative (1. 5 percent per annum)... In comparison, South Korea had a productivity growth of 5.7 percent per annum. Technology growth in India during the last two decades has been only 0.7 percent per annum while the corresponding figure for South Korea is 3.6 percent per annum. R&D expenditure as a percentage of GNP in India is only 1 percent but in case of South Korea is 2 percent, which is further expected to rise to 5 percent by 2000. Thus, Indian production enterprises require better technologies, managerial expertise and work practices."

1.7 One of the areas requiring urgent attention as highlighted by the above study, of relevance here, is "efficient/low cost production". While inadequacies in the quality of education of technical personnel is not the only factor responsible for lower productivity of Indian industry, it is nevertheless an important factor and one that can be redressed.

1.8 One of the main shortcomings of students of technical education system, for example, is their inability to apply the tools for solution of practical problems. This in turn can be ascribed to lack of exposure to practical applications during training. Shortcomings of this nature can be removed substantially by improving interaction between industry and teaching institutions through induction of sandwich courses, for instance. The sweeping changes on the economic and industrial landscape of India in the recent weeks, aim at improving competitiveness of Indian industry. Indian industry has now to face unprecedented challenges from across the seas, from which it was hitherto protected. Any slackening of efforts at improvement in productivity can be disastrous for indigenous manufacture. In this context, the attention to improvements in technical education, as evident from the sponsorship of the present proposal, is both timely and of critical importance.

1.9 A related fact is that cost of education and training is on the increase given the general push in costs across Indian economy. The budget on the other hand is under severe pressure for resources. It is therefore imperative that the productivity of each rupee available/spent on technical education must also be enhanced distinctly alongside with the quality of technical education.

1.10 Thus, while technical training in India has made notable progress and contribution of IITs has been significant, its main and continuing weakness is a "systematic rigidity" which has eroded autonomy at the institutional level. This has not only resulted in delayed response to technological change but also inadequate interface with industry, most significantly in its ability to respond urgently to new demands. Consequently, even the best students have problems in relating themselves to real life situations without long periods of post-recruitment training. Thus the very purpose of training technologists is not fully served. The economy is unable to draw the full benefits from high investment on technical educational establishments. As Indian industry is now confronted face to face with international giants, it is imperative that this situation be altered. The Group believes that removal of this chronic deficiency, namely, lack of interface between training and end-users (industry & trade), must form the core of the improvement package. Quality of training at IITs and Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs) must be cast in a practical mould and progressively upgraded to bring it closer to the high academic standards prevailing worldwide. The focus of these twin steps must be to enhance the employability and creative contribution of those qualifying from the institutions of technical education.

1.11 It is in this perspective that the Group proposes to look at how well the trained men and women are performing and the strengths and weaknesses of training imparted by IITs/their curricula/teaching-learning method and materials, background of their faculty and so on, in order to suggest how best they can serve the needs of domestic rather than overseas industry.