Under general professional engineering direction, or following established engineering techniques, he is capable of carrying out duties which may be found among the list of examples set below.

In carrying out many of his duties, competent supervision of the work of skilled craftsmen will be necessary. The techniques employed demand acquired experience and knowledge of a particular branch of engineering combined with the ability to work out the details of a task in the light of well-established practice.

An engineering technician requires an education and training sufficient to enable him to understand the reasons for and purposes of the operation for which he is responsible.

The following duties are typical of those carried by engineering technicians:

Working on design and development of engineering plant and structure; erecting drawing; estimating; inspecting and testing engineering construction and equipment; use of surveying instruments, operating, maintaining, repairing engineering services and locating defects therein; activities connected with research development, testing of materials and components; soil engineering; servicing equipment and advising consumers.

Within this broad category, there are several levels of skills required ranging from the first-line supervisor or foreman of a group of workers, who may be promoted from among skilled workers and given training (as is done by the Directorate-General of Employment and Training) through the technician who may replace the engineer for well-proven assignment, to a higher technician, or a sort of technologist, qualified to replace the engineer for some design, inspection, testing and erection jobs. Technicians are, in the main, trained in three-year diploma courses in polytechnics, of which there are some 274 (plus 17 girls' polytechnics) as against 43 in 1947.

15.20 In India, many graduate engineers are in fact doing what should be regarded as technician type work. *179 This is a wasteful use of their skills and an unnecessary charge on training costs. Highly industrialized countries are placing more and more emphasis on the

179* See, for example, the IAMR Study, Co-ordination of Engineering Education with Employment of Engineering Manpower.

15.22 VOCATIONAL, TECHNICAL AND ENGINEERING EDUCATION 687

training of middle-level technicians, whose role and status are, un- fortunately, little appreciated in India. Evidence presented to us of overseas practices as well as the figures of educational attainment of those now in employment in India, tends to show that our pyramid of trained manpower is top heavy. While proportions vary from industry to industry, the ratio adopted in advanced industrialized countries appears to be of the order of 1: 3 or 4 or even 1: 5 or 6 (a ratio recommended by the 1956 UK White Paper on Technical Education). In India, the aggregate ratio is today 1 engineer to about 1.4 technicians. This ratio varies from industry to industry and includes certificate as well as diploma holders. The Fourth Plan proposals, as tentatively drawn up, would see an increase in this ratio to about 1 : 1.5. While overall ratios in this respect may be misleading in their application to each of the courses available to polytechnics, there seems to us to be a strong case for a much more rapid increase in facilities at the technician level. *180 We therefore strongly recommend that public and private industry take immediate steps to make the careers of technicians attractive in their status and salary conditions and cooperate with educational authorities in expanding and improving training facilities at this level. Our immediate goal should be to improve the overall ratio of engineers to technicians to 1 : 2.5 by 1975 and 1 : 3 or 4 by 1986.

15.21 For its part, the education system must make vigorous efforts to correct defects in the present training. Three criticisms are frequently heard from both industrialists and educators. One is that the courses offered by polytechnics tend to be diluted forms of engineering courses. A second is that the training is insufficiently practical or industry oriented. A third criticism relates to the amount of wastage in students enrolling for courses. Various studies on this last point have, for different periods, shown overall range of wastage rates in diploma courses varying between 35.6 per cent and 50 per cent.

15.22 Immediate steps are needed to correct these weaknesses. In the first place, periodic investigations should be carried out in cooperation with industry, aimed at job analysis and specifications in terms of levels and clusters of skills and responsibilities for technicians. Courses should be revised in the fight of these determinations, aiming not at producing a lower class engineer, but a technician in the terms we have defined. Since industry must be expected to complete, through experience and specialization, the training of technicians, as of other specialized workers, there is no need to design highly refined courses based on detailed job-by-job analysis. Groups of related skills only need be identified to begin with in certain areas of industry-civil, electrical, chemical, textiles, mechanical and mining.

180* The same argument holds good for the ratios between skilled workers and technicians.

13

688 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 15.23

15.23 A second immediate reform should aim at making diploma training more practical, by including industrial experience, particularly in the last year of training. Such practical experience should be of a project, problem-oriented type and will of necessity have to be within a speciality being practised by industry in the locality of the polytechnic. The aim would not be so much to turn out a diploma holder who has specialized in bridge building or road construction, for example, but to give practical experience in the application of the principles and processes studied during the course.

15.24 There are at least two important consequences of this. The first is that polytechnics should be located only in industrial areas, industrial estates or areas specifically designated for development as industrial locations. The location of polytechnics should not be determined on an arbitrary rule of one per district, but should be guided by the location of industries and employment potentials. A number of polytechnics are in rural areas where no industry exists for the moment or is likely to exist. in our view, these polytechnics should develop courses allied to agriculture for the craftsmen and technicians needed by agro-industries and extension work. *181

15.25 The second important consequence of this recommendation is that the teachers in polytechnics should not be fresh degree holders from engineering colleges, but should combine good practical experience with academic qualifications. A greater effort should be made to recruit teachers, including diploma holders, from industry. Academic requirements should be relaxed to ensure this and salaries should not be linked to academic qualifications only. Extensive programme of summer institutes should be organized for the staff of polytechnics including those recently appointed. In addition to the training colleges for polytechnic teachers, courses for them should also be organized at the regional colleges of engineering and institutes of technology where the trainees should be given orientation in teaching practice as well as supervised production experience and courses in the basic sciences.

15.26 It goes without saying that every polytechnic should have well-equipped workshops and laboratories and use them fully. But to give training in as near realistic conditions as possible, we recommend that vacations be used by students and staff to do production work on hand tools, simple machine tools, small lathes, drilling machines, etc., either for equipping secondary schools or for sale. In larger towns this production work should, as far as possible, be carried out in cooperation with industry.

15.27 Due to the present relatively poor standards in science and mathematics teaching in lower secondary schools, the teaching of these

181* See Chapter XIV.

15.30 VOCATIONAL, TECHNICAL AND ENGINEERING EDUCATION 689

subjects in polytechnics needs to be strengthened, particularly in the first two years. The long-term solution, of course, lies in better science teaching in the schools. But until this happens the polytechnics will have to take corrective measures. Since technicians will be called upon to assume semi-managerial roles, their training should also include some introduction to industrial psychology, management, costing and estimation.

15.28 As pointed out earlier, a substantial number of technicians will continue to come up, and should be encouraged to do so, through industry. Polytechnics can assist in this by offering part-time courses, though greater success would probably follow the wider institution of sandwich type courses, designed in cooperation with industry. These could, for example, be based on six months in the institution and six months' industrial training. These would provide a good balance of theory and practice, permit the training of two batches per year, the uninterrupted utilization of students in industries for a significant period, and allow students, during their period in the institutions, to take full advantage of student life and college facilities. The periods within industry and in the institution could, however, vary with circumstances.

15.29 This new type of training suggested will require a much closer cooperation with industry than has been the case so far, partly in order to ensure appropriate practical experiences for students, partly to strengthen the teaching of staff within the polytechnics, and finally in order to design courses of study more closely related to industrial needs. We find that there is not a great mobility of diploma holders within India and that even when opportunities for employment are lacking on the local market, technicians are reluctant to migrate elsewhere. In our view, therefore, the courses offered in polytechnics, at least during the Fourth and Fifth Plans, can be designed largely with local requirements in mind, though a watchful eye on total national needs should be kept. It follows from this that in designing the courses of study offered a large degree of latitude should be allowed to the principal of each Polytechnic. In arriving at decisions on this, he should look closely at local manpower needs and evolve some forecasts for his region in cooperation with industry and the State manpower officer.

15.30 Particular attention should be given to developing courses of special interest to girls in all polytechnics. While a majority of courses will appeal to both boys and girls, there are careers in commerce, the service trades and industry of special interest to girls. Examples are: courses in secretarial practice, pharmacy, interior decoration, electronics and radio technology, instrument technology, dress design, commercial art, medical laboratory technology, library science and architecture.

690 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 15.31

Courses in these areas are already being offered in the seventeen polytechnics for girls. but all polytechnics should be assisted to offer such Courses, at both the certificate and diploma levels, and to attract into them girls who have completed the lower secondary course. For some time it may also be necessary to open more polytechnics for girls in order to attract them into these courses. The principals of polytechnics should work with the guidance services and the heads of high schools in attracting girls to these careers.

15.31 In implementing the above programmes for expanded and reoriented technician training, the greatest attention should be paid to ensuring the fullest use of facilities. Present wastage rates are around 40 per cent. Every effort must be made to reduce this to a minimum and to expand existing polytechnics to their optimum size. One of the main contributing factors to high wastage and low utilization is inadequate staffing. In 1965, about 31 per cent of sanctioned posts were 'unfilled'. *182 In addition, there is a frequent turnover of staff. Poor remuneration is most frequently quoted as the reason. This undoubtedly contributes and we recommend that immediate steps should be taken to ensure the implementation of the revised scales of pay and service conditions. This scale should overlap with that of the staff in engineering colleges but, as stated earlier, should not be tied solely to academic qualifications. This would be in keeping with our plea for enhanced status for the technician in industry and society. We believe that lack of job satisfaction also contributes to the loss of teachers and the poor response to recruitment. The production programmes for polytechnics suggested earlier, which will give the staff an opportunity to design, supervise and participate in production would, we feel, help in changing this attitude as well as in providing an additional remuneration and incentive.

15.32 As pointed out earlier, the level of responsibilities of technicians is a graded one, and at the top, in certain specific and established jobs of testing, design, installation, assistance in research and development, and supervision of manufacture, the technician may replace the engineer at a responsible level. In some countries, the category of higher technician, technician-engineer or technologist has been established to fill these roles and specific training programmes and certification provided. This is an important concept, and the numbers of these will grow in India with the further sophistication and expansion of industry. We recommend that selected polytechnics provide post-diploma courses for technicians with some years of experience in industry for the training of such higher level technicians, where the periodic surveys of job specifications recommended above, show this to be desirable, or where principals of polytechnics and industry identify the need.

182* For details, see Table 15.2.

15.35 VOCATIONAL, TECHNICAL AND ENGINEERING EDUCATION 691

15.34 Education for Self-employment and Small-Scale Industry. The dimensions of the problems arising from the growth of the organized employment market, particularly in relation to the growth of stocks of educated people, have been discussed elsewhere. *184 We wish to stress here only one point: the responsibility of technical and vocational education for training not only those who will seek employment, but also those who will create employment. This, we feel, has particular relevance at the skilled worker and technician level. With electrification, irrigation, communications, and other facilities reaching villages, new opportunities for skilled craftsmen will arise, either for repair work or for small-scale production. Products of technical high schools, polytechnics and the agricultural Polytechnics proposed in the preceding chapter, should be encouraged to think of setting up small enterprises of their own or joining together with others in creating small-scale workshops, industries or services needed in the community, on a self-employed, cooperative or community- sponsored basis. Such enterprise is encouraged under the Small Scale Industries Scheme and educational authorities have a responsibility to interest their students in these possibilities.

15.35 Part-time Education. Facilities for part-time, on-the- job and vocational and technical training for those who have entered employment or are seeking employment after leaving school below class X, need also to be greatly expanded. These may be offered on a part- time, apprenticeship, day-release, correspondence course, sandwich course, or

183* For suggestions on courses, see Annexure to this chapter.

184* Chapter V.

692 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 15.36