Indian Engineering Education needs a Reboot

Abstract

Many opinions have been shared of late regarding the education of engineers in India. The usual list of criticisms includes outdated curricula (2017) , poor preparation of college faculty, need for professional and critical thinking skills (Gupta 2019, Sanghi 2019), the need to reduce in theoretical content in favor of practical knowledge, and a lack of connection with industrial practitioners (Mahadevan 2019) . The updating of the syllabus and incorporating active learning can help support students to develop both communication and critical thinking skills, as proven by engineering education research (Felder and Brent 2016) , but this is only a bandage on a system that is not fixable without updating the policies at the national level. Additionally, there is no motivation from The Apex Body to utilize modern pedagogy as there is no measure for these practices in the accreditation process.