Technical institutes of South India have performed better than their peers in the northern and western regions on linkages with industry, a study by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) said on Wednesday.
According to the study, conducted on 1,050 participants across engineering, management, pharmacy and architectural institutes, the southern region scored 30.73 points against the national average of 22.10 points. The western region scored 14 points.
The scores reflect industry's involvement in governance and their role in placing students in industry positions. The survey also studied parameters such as faculty, placements and curriculum of technical institutes across India. "A key purpose of education is to ensure a job for students and industry linkage is important to ensure that. Industry linkages also ensure the value of students and teachers improve drastically," said Shankar S Mantha, Chairman, AICTE.
Y S Rajan, chairman of the jury that conducted the study, said institutes in South India managed to score better on their industry linkages largely due to their historical advantage. "A number of institutes in the south have been existent since long. They have in the past managed to improve links with the industry," Rajan said.
India currently has a little more than 3,000 engineering schools, and the survey looked at those which had existed for at least five years. "All the institutes appeared to struggle to score high in relation to industry involvement in their research activity. For example, institutes are rarely contracted to conduct research projects by companies, nor do they often make technology transfers to industry," the study said.
The study raises an alarm about India's educational sector, where a large number of youth are rendered jobless even after completing higher education. In fact, no Indian institute had found a place in the global rankings compiled by the Times Higher education and the Quadracilli Symonds. These had in their rankings pointed out that the linkages between universities and industry continue to be poor, compared to global standards.
India had recently announced a policy allowing foreign educational institutions to set up campuses in India without a local partner, even as officials remain sceptical of institutions coming to India due to the strict norms in the policy.
"There is a strong need for industry to fund research programmes in the country and we are seeing more industry participation now. We are also trying to understand how the rankings are currently done. Also, a lot of research is on specific topics and areas. So the funding comes accordingly, whether it is from the private or public sector," said Prof P Mujumdar, dean (R&D) at IIT Bombay
The government is currently in the midst of a rolling out the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) to bring in reforms in the higher education departments in the country. The plan also proposes to add 80 new universities and 100 new professional and technical institutes in the country.
