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India loves Engineers! This undeniable love and faith in engineering is something that is seen across the country. Saying that “My son is an Engineer” or “I’m a so-so Engineer” comes with a sense of pride. But it is not something that is followed as a trend. Affv major part of it comes from the fact that Engineers are important to the country. Right from Telecommunications to Defense to Food, engineering plays a big role in keeping the country alive.
In India, aspiring Engineers look up to JEE Main & Advanced Examinations. It is the entrance exam which qualifies students for admission in IITs. It is an intense and highly competitive exam. In 2019 alone, 9,41,000 students participated in the exams. In 2020, 2.90 lakh women wrote JEE Mains which was conducted in January. Additionally, the Union Minister for Human Resource Development recently announced that the center plans to increase 50% across all Institutions of eminence in India. JEE Advanced 2020 also saw a 17 to 20% increase in Female seats for admission in IIT.
However, Engineering equally had its dose of tribulations as well.
India has seen huge flooding of Engineers into the market with little to almost no practical knowledge. A lot of credit goes to the way the education of Engineering was built. It missed the crucial chance to nurture our ecosystem within India to create jobs and industries that demand high skills. The system only had a theoretical approach with no exposure to the industry it was about to employ engineers in. It brushed aside little chances for multi-disciplinary learning or solving real-world problems. It got to a point where Engineers would compromise into other jobs like digital marketing or setting up their own business. The sharply declining quality of Engineers and Engineering was worrisome while the data pointed out something else.
Before we discuss all of that, why is India so obsessed with engineering in the first place?
Post-Independence, India had to face a nation that suffered a great deal of delay towards modern infrastructure and establishments. The setting up of the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), the phenomenal Agricultural reform – The Green Revolution, and India’s very own Indian Space and Research Organization ISRO launched the country towards a competitive future. Amidst this, the year 1951 also saw the establishment of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Kharagpur which would entirely change the technological face of the country. This is the exact reason why Engineering was one of the most prestigious jobs a citizen could take up and ‘serve’ the country towards economy and infrastructure.
While the whole world is in the middle of a swell, India has a tight economy (apart from recent COVID developments). Through the decades, our GDP had
gradually increased into giant economies ultimately on the way to fulfill more than a billion dreams. And since our economy is on the rise, we had some statistics to back up what we claim.
- India is an active exporter of engineered goods to markets of the US and Europe.
- The year 2018 saw a spike of $76.20 Billion export compared to $65.23 million in 2017.
- India saw an increase with CAGR 7% in the export of machinery and other electrical equipment from the year 2010 to 2018 and has steadily increased since then.
What does all of that have to say about the increasing number of IIT and JEE students?
On this year July 29, the education ministry of India announced the National Education Policy 2020. It came almost as a surprise with huge happiness across India for the future education of students designed for better job opportunities and efficient skills.
One of the many reasons why India continuously sees a rise in Engineering students is because of the scale of development India is implementing. Even though it has its disputes, it is undeniably true that India is moving towards better infrastructure and technological systems. To support and execute these, engineers are a must!
Among the highlights of the National Education Policy 2020 was the introduction of Coding to students during school – specifically from 6th grade.
The policy lays heavy emphasis on the increasing needs of digital and mechanical technologies all of which demand highly skilled Engineers. The newly announced education policy is positive and imperatively indicates an increase in engineering opportunities in the coming years – especially IT. JEE exams and IIT are the sole eminent bodies of function making sure more skilled Engineers are graduated every year. As budgets grow, opportunities spike, directly leading to high pay scales too.
As innovation and entrepreneurship are leading fields of employment today, India is seeing a new streak of the curriculum. Recently, a report by MIT stated that future engineering education will include three trends. One will focus on work-based learning, multidisciplinary programs with an emphasis on self-reflection too. It will decentralize engineering leadership from highly developed and paying countries to emerge economies like India. The second trend turns its eyes towards building a socially relevant engineering curriculum, and the third trend is to develop a focus towards the student-centric curriculum delivered by a generation of engineering education leaders. Recently, 45 industry experts and entrepreneurs came forwards to establish Plaksha University. It will start in 2021 in Mohali. It exemplifies the need of the hour – a new generation of Innovative, technical, and experiential masters level of the engineering curriculum.
The future of education and infrastructure across the globe is changing too
As the world already has established a living-breathing unified collection of digital systems, the future is moving towards virtual technologies. The inclusion of AI and Data Science will be responsible for driving future industries. Since India is increasingly pacing towards a digital and sustainable development, the scope for engineering is high!
There are some other important factors too –
- Education is changing. Today, online education platforms are taking over traditional educational systems. As students can avail of online lectures, important hurdles such as inaccessibility, long travel distance, and tuition fees will decrease. It will also foster a healthy schedule for students to pick up and learn new skills in different skill development platform. It is also giving students massive exposure to online technology.
- Sustainable development is under dialogue across nations today. The increase in climate change demands sustainable technologies that will require newer engineering marvels in itself – which again brings in the scope of mechanical and equipment engineering.
