Engineering Approach to Engineering Education

Engineering education, among all higher education in India, has been most progressive. Curriculum reforms, examination and assessment reforms, industry linkage, use of ICT in admission and education delivery have been introduced to a lesser or greater extent across engineering institutions in the country. Similar thrust is not observed when it comes to administrative and fiscal reforms. In a typical institution, the two, academics and administration, merely coexist as two independent cultures.

The paper argues that quality of an engineering institution or any educational institution for that matter, would improve if innovation in academics occurs in tandem with innovation in administration in fact, the full import of innovation is possible only when the two, academics and administration, are integrated as in an engineering systems design. Evidently, the systems approach of engineering design has not been applied to designing an engineering education institution. While stressing a need for such an approach the paper presents a worked out example of a set of innovations in academics and in administration, shows the nature of integral relationship between the two and brings out how integration helps improve quality of education.

Paper urges the readers to ponder over the following beliefs

i) Academic reform can be done without administrative reform

ii) Faculty should not be involved in administration

iii) Reform is not be possible without additional funds

iv) Innovation can be externally grafted

v) Norms are externally determined and uniform for all Engineering approach to engineering education is needed to improve the quality of engineering education.