A group of 7 alumni from the prestigious IITs met the President, Pratibha Patil to recommend educational reforms. The President then asked them to formulate a plan detailing all their recommendations. A report is now in place, where the IIT Alumni recommend a 5 point program comprising:
- Implementing reforms in policies and governance
- Mandating quality and increase in capacity
- Enabling quantum improvement in faculty service conditions
- Technological deployments for teaching and collaborative research
- Establishing active industry and academia interfaces
A major aim behind this proposed plan is to increase the enrollment in higher education from the present 11% to a targeted 20%. In order to address the lack of properly trained/experienced faculty, a group of IIT Alumni teaching in the US have come together to form The IUCEE – Indo US Collaboration for Engineering Education. This body will facilitate the training of faculty in the IITs. Similar groups will also be created for non Engineering Colleges – the idea being to bring a change in the education being imparted in colleges, along with the method of instruction too.
Another suggestion made by the report is the clustering of universities, based on their offerings. The idea is to include universities with cutting edge research in the first layer, universities with professional and academic degrees/diplomas in the second layer and those with skill based education in the third layer.
These reforms if implemented will surely lead to a major overhaul of the educational infrastructure and perhaps even meet the targeted 20% enrollment in higher education.
