Quality of Engineering Education on the Decline?

Anna University of Technology-Chennai is worried about the status and performance of engineering colleges in the state of Tamil Nadu on the basis of academic audit that was taken up last July. For instance, during the last three years the overall pass-percentage of final year students of the university as a whole had been in the range of 75% to 80%. Only half of them were placed in jobs in 2010-11.Of these, two thirds were in IT and only the remaining were from core industries though many of the students were from non-IT streams. IT had come to the rescue of the majority of the students coming out of these colleges, it seems. IT may reach a stage of saturation very soon after which the placement percentage is bound to decline and expose the poverty of thinking in terms of man-power planning that is badly needed for this country. Sooner the better and earlier the better. What is the big use of higher education in technology & engineering at such a cost if not backed by salaried job or self-employment?

The audit also found that many teachers were not being paid their prescribed salaries. Only one college offers an average salary of more than Rs.60, 000 a month to its teaching staff. All other top ranking colleges offer an average salary of Rs.45, 000 to Rs.50, 000 a month.

Some colleges offer only an average salary of Rs.8, 000 to Rs.10, 000 a month, and this tells on the performance of the students, the university has mentioned. “A broad observation is that colleges that pay good salary have good academic ranking” said C.Thangaraj, vice chancellor of AUT-Chennai.

After holding discussions with the stakeholders, AUT-Chennai has suggested the introduction of a flexible academic system. “Our university has students who have got only 70 marks along with the students who have scored 200 out of 200. Unfortunately, we give them the same academic load to all of them uniformly”, Professor Thangaraj asserts.

He suggested that colleges give students some freedom to select the courses in a semester according to their capability, instead of asking all of them to pass six similar courses in all semesters.

 

Quality is more important than the quantity when it comes to higher education in professional courses and the number of colleges and students should have some correlation with the need of the society and industrial and service sectors in particular. More than the degrees we need more of the diploma holders and trained craftsmen for soiling their hands and working on the machines for manufacturing and servicing.

(Friday, October 21, 2011 Times of India)

Efficiency questioned again?

A natural lake called 'Pazhaverkadu' spread over an area of 481 sq. KMs at a distance of 20 Km from Ponneri near Chennai has been declared a tourist spot by Tourism Department and similarly as a bird sacntuary by the Forest Department. As stated by the tourists the spot suffers from lack of infrastructure facilities due to which a beautiful tourist destination has become a death trap. Last Sunday, December 25, 2011 a boat capsized in the lake resulting in the death of 22 persons, mostly women and children due to over loading as revealed by the local (North T.Nadu) I.G. of Police, Mr C.Shailendra Babu.

Since 2004 the spot has become an attracive tourist centre. But unfortunately no efforts have been made by both the departments for safety measures. Who is to be blamed? The spot had in the past too had claimed several lives and administration is busy elsewhere it seems. Human life has no value in india. Apart from natural disasters man's negligence has added to several deaths from time to time.

Well, what to expect of the rotten system when everybody is busy in self-interest or lack of accountability is the order of the day!

Anna Hazare Vs Indian Parliament?

Anna Hazare's attempt to pressurise the Parliamentarians of different hues / political parties to pass the Lokpal Bill as suggested by his team is facing a rough and tough passage at the moment. Different political parties are interpreting and issuing differing views on the different clauses in the Bill presented by the UPA government on Thursday, December 22, 2011 in the Lok Sabha. Some are advocating the non-inclusion of Prime minister & CBI and state lokayuktas whereas some are opposing it on the ground of being a weak Bill. Well one is apprehensive of its slow death as in the case of Women's Bill. There is not going to be a consensus on such an important and necessary legislation in view of the existing political atmosphere in the country. Every body in today's Indian polity has some sort of  vested interest that needs to be protected. Anna's team will be put to a test of popularity and a long-drawn battle before anything would come out of their struggle made so far.

CURSE OF MIGRATION?

A news item in “NAI DUNIYA”, Raipur dated Thursday, November 24, 2011 indicates that the migration of labourers from the state of Chhattisgarh is not coming to an end in spite of the important National Employment Guarantee Scheme being executed.

It appears from the available statistics that from surrounding areas of Pithora in Raipur district about 5000 labourers have migrated so far this year. It is further reported that this sort of migration is mainly due to the active role played by the labour contractors and the inability or incompetence of Labour Department. There seems to be no action taken against these contractors. They are normally found busy in their work soon after the monsoon under the pretext of offering more wages to the labourers with the result the migration starts even before the Dussehra festival.

One could see in the last two months such labourers being transported in private vehicles and public bus transport up to Bilaspur and Raipur Railway stations, from where they were supposed to reach their destination in states like Punjab, Haryana and U.P. No one can question the liberty of anybody for that matter moving in search of better and well-paid jobs in other states and regions but what is disturbing in the state of Chhattisgarh is the phenomenon of forced migration for want of gainful and decent wage-employment in the neighborhood of those villagers.

GANGA BRINGS LIFE & DEATH

“The Ganga is just the most beautiful and loving body of water. You realize that it brings life and death, and the acceptance of death. By the time I was at the end of the journey, people would say the Ganga can heal you. It did heal me. What I have come to understand is that I can be healed and still death is always a given thing,” says Michelle Baldwin, a terminal cancer patient who rode the Ganga recently to raise money for the killer disease.

Michelle is an adventurous white woman who did paddle-boating on the Ganga for 500 KMs from Rishikesh to Varanasi as a pilgrimage to raise $100,000 for a global campaign against cervical cancer.

Hats off to this woman who undertook an arduous journey to achieve her goal. As a matter of fact her campaign will not go a waste. It is no doubt disheartening to note that as many as 74,000 die of cervical cancer in India, leaving about 300,000 children without their mothers.

I wish an Indian woman had done a similar feat.