How can schools give a facelift to engineering education

In 2021, about a million students passed out of India’s higher education institutions in engineering - around 3,500 engineering colleges, an equal number of polytechnics, and a few hundreds of schools of planning and architecture. But the harsh reality is that most of them may not find a suitable job - at least, within the next one or two years.

Statista, a data and analytics firm, estimates that the employability among Indian engineering graduates was about 49% in 2020, and it dropped to 47% this year. The dictionary definition of “employability” is the quality of being employable for a paid job. It simply means that our colleges need to produce engineers, and not just engineering graduates. But schools have a big role to play in creating engineers with employable skills. For one, they can catch the students young and prepare them to acquire the right knowledge and skills in engineering, the right way. There are some good developments in recent years. The school curriculums cover engineering and technology as much as they do science and mathematics. There is a STEM balance, so to say. Schools also create opportunities for their students to learn computer programming and robotics.

In addition, they need to focus on a few areas I consider fundamental for students to get a solid footing necessary for success in higher education in engineering. They include:

Engineering communication

Traditionally engineers are not known for their communication skills but there is no reason why they can’t be good communicators. Teaching engineering concepts well is one thing but training students to be good communicators of engineering concepts is another. Schools can encourage the technical communication skills of students by giving them assignments of talking, presentations and essay competitions. Communication is not only a key employability skill but it is also a learning technique. To explain something well, students need to understand their subjects well. This way, the students develop clarity of technical concepts instead of just memorizing them.

Real projects

Studies show how only a fraction of our computer engineering graduates know how to write code on their own - as they relied on readymade projects for their college education. But this practice starts from schools. It is unfortunate that school projects are available off the shelf. Schools should create enough monetary, social and psychological incentives for students to bring the projects of their own brain child. The emphasis must be on originality and not how advanced, novel or mesmerizing the projects are. Schools can organise ‘original project’ expos. They can also create ‘Makers Lab’ that give students all the necessary electrical, electronic, and mechanical components for them to create prototypes for their projects.

Learning techniques

There are many instances where students with genuine interest in learning fall through the cracks. It only highlights the need for our students to know the right ways of learning. For instance, knowing to apply The Pomodoro Technique, a time management technique that makes way for adequate breaks between effort, can help students master subjects like mathematics. Students need to take breaks whenever their mind is stuck. Breaks allow the subconscious mind to take over the conscious mind in attempting to learn or solve problems. Hence, when students resume their learning, they make progress in learning. This is why schools in Finland and other Nordic countries, considered the best for their schooling system, give a 15-minute compulsory break for every 40 minute of classroom teaching.

Digital adoption

Schools should start believing and investing in technology such as smart or digital classrooms. They must start presenting content in 3D, animation, games and interactive ‘simulation’ programs that make comprehension of engineering and technology subjects effortless. Another development is online content (“Massive Open Online Courses’’). Take any tech concept, there are world class lectures made available by individual experts and renowned institutions like MIT Harvard and Stanford.

There is nothing wrong in curating good lectures and presenting them to the students if they can help students learn better.

The efforts of schools in these directions will make a big difference in the lives of the students who in future enter into the portals of higher education in engineering and come out ready for their dream engineering jobs.