Having published customised text books for seven universities across Maharashtra, Pearson Education is now looking at the growing engineering colleges for more business. Hosting a seminar on 'reshaping engineering education' in Ahmedabad, the educational company is eyeing customised engineering books publishing business from Gujarat now.
"About 3-4 years back, there were around 40-45 engineering colleges in Gujarat which have now doubled up to 90. Moreover, with infrastructure growing and industrialisation happening, there is an increased demand for engineering curriculum that is industry-oriented in Gujarat. This has shown us a potential for customised engineering books which we already publish for colleges in Maharashtra and other Central government agencies," said K Srinivas, AVP and publisher, Pearson Education.
The company sees potential for customised publishing in Gujarat with the increased number of engineering seats in the state.
"Earlier there were lesser number of people who wanted to do engineering. Even those who wanted to do, would go to South India or other places. Today, the Gujarat Technical University (GTU) has created lot of local access for engineering colleges and the students in Gujarat have now an additional option of engineering, apart from the regular streams like arts, commerce, science, management and performing arts," said Srinivas, talking about the business potential in Gujarat.
Through the seminar, the company brought together governing bodies, professors, educationists and top management from the premier engineering colleges of Ahmedabad, to answer and discuss the critical issues in the area of engineering education. In its effort to reach out to students and faculties, far and wide, this is the second such seminar to be organised by Pearson Education, the first one being in Pune.
Talking about the seminar, Srinivas said, "It's a no brainer that producing world class engineers is paramount for the country's development. At this juncture, reshaping education in India, particularly technical education is of prime importance. There is a growing need to revamp the engineering education system, to encourage creative and innovative learning. We at Pearson Education are dedicated to improving the learning material and assist the faculty and students in achieving higher learning outcomes."
Pearson Custom Publishing, an initiative by the group, works with subject matter experts to create customised books that provide faculties and students a resource which covers the complete syllabus, and have rich pedagogical features like learning objectives for each chapter, a summary at the end of each chapter, key definitions and concepts explained in the marginalia, solved examples and numerical exercises.
