Tech institutes of South India performed better than peers

Technical institute of South India have performed better than their peers in the northern and western regions on linkages with industry, a study revealed this fact which was done by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

As per the study, which was done on 1,050 participants in different engineering, management, pharmacy and architectural institutes, the southern region got 30.37 points against the national average of 22.10 points. The western region got 14 points.

The score reflect industry’s involvement in governance and their role in placing students in industry positions. The survey also evaluated these institutes on different parameters such as faculty, placements and curriculum of technical institutes across the country. AICTE chairman, S.S. Mantha said, “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.”

Y S Rajan, chairman of the jury that conducted the study, said institutes in the South Indian get better scores on their industry linkages as compared to institutes of western and northern parts largely due to their historical advantage. Rajan said, “A number of institutes in the south have been existent since long. They have in the past managed to improve links with the industry.”

Presently, India has over 3000 engineering schools and the survey looked at those which had existed for at least five years. The study revealed, “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 indicated that large number of youth remained jobless even after completing their higher education. In fact, no Indian Institute has got a place in the global ranking publised by Times higher Education. Prof. P Majumdar, Dean (R&D), IIT Bombay, said, “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.