Electrical Engineering Education In India: Another Look

Abstract

With outsourcing and globalization, India has become an important pool for the outsourcing of service and information technology work in the US and other industrialized countries. In addition to software development and call centers, many fortune 500 companies, such as Intel, IBM and GE have located their R&D centers in India. GE-India is working on advanced fields, such as computing and decision sciences, non-destructive evaluation, imaging technologies, electromechanical control systems, electromagnetic analysis and high voltage and high current phenomena. Additionally, GM has an automobile plant in Chennai (South India) to be close to the customer base. Several other companies, including Texas Instruments of the USA are moving to India to setup plants to be close to the consumer market. This is feasible because they have easy access to highly qualified, talented, English-speaking engineering graduates required for their companies. India has been supplying a big percentage of engineering graduates to the developed nations like the USA and Australia for the past two decades. All this was possible, thanks to the engineering education of India. The engineering education in India is offered by premiere institutions, such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs, ranking 50 in the world and #1 in India) at 7 cities, as well as by other institutions, such as the University of Madras (Anna University) and Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT). The essence of Indian engineering education is strong math, science, and engineering basics, problem-solving and analytical skills. Not all Indian universities have fully equipped labs or the latest equipment. However, this is more than compensated by the hard work and quick grasping of the young, well-educated, and flexible engineering students of both genders. Since "business as usual" doesn't work anymore, the curricula are kept current and up-to-date. Topics such as mechatronics, bioinformatics are covered to meet the competition and challenges posed by outsourcing and globalization. The importance of soft skills, such as project management skills, IT, and good communication skills in addition to the basic sciences, engineering sciences and in-depth skills in a specific engineering discipline has been realized and implemented in the curricula. In this paper, the contemporary curricula in EE at Indian Universities will be investigated and compared to preoutsourcing curricula. The merits of these curricula and areas for improvement will be explored. Introduction: Education has always been an important characteristic of India for thousands of years. Scholars were always highly respected and revered, even above the kings who ruled the county and the states. The kings honored and appreciated educators and scholars. Nalanda University at Bihar, India was visited by scholars from China and other places several hundred years ago to study and learn and to impart their knowledge to the disciples (students). This trend has been continuing and now the spotlight is on the engineering...