Engineering Watch Aims to Develop an Eco-System for Engineers in India
In India, an impressive infrastructure for providing engineering education has been developed with a significant intellectual capital engaged & employed with due academic governance falling in place. The interface between various stakeholders is on the rise and is strengthening on a daily basis. Everyone wants to become an Engineer but is reluctant to pursue Engineering as a profession. The wide gulf of status & power between specialists & generalists which exists in the country as an outcome of the colonial past is largely responsible for the same. What is probably lacking is a sense of purpose and an inspiration which could drive this huge community to accomplish its due potential and further national interests. We are simply aping the west or at best end up grooming our brains to serve their larger interests. The dignity and pride associated with the creation of something original is lacking immensely in our culture, thereby on the campuses and subsequently in the corporate cabins.
Educational Governance is still very much top-down in nature with some all knowing, all powerful wise men sitting somewhere on the top and passing comments and strictures. This percolates down to the engineering institutions that run more as a tightly held bureaucratic system rather than an enabling innovative educational eco-system. Education sector probably remains as the last bastion of a regulated economy of the bygone era. It suffers from the dichotomy of being a regulated regime on one end with the challenges as diverse & complex as that of a market driven one. Such a troubled segment certainly needs a voice. Engineering Watch is a multi-channel (print-portal-presence) engagement platform for all the stakeholders of engineering education comprising of Academic institutions, Corporates and Government aimed at reducing the multifarious information asymmetries. Engineering Watch is the new avatar of the erstwhile UPTU WATCH which operated in the state of Uttar Pradesh, started with the aspiration "Can UPTUians become the brand ambassadors of Uttar Pradesh, the way IITians have for India" and created a significant impact which included a study which showed that the "Engineering Talent Pool of Uttar Pradesh is significantly better than the national average" and its campaign of "Synergizing Techno-Managerial Education with local developmental needs" evoked tremendous response from all quarters.
On a broader level the portal covers the 7Ps comprising of Problems, Policies, Programmes, Practices, Projects, Products & People concerning engineering education in India. It intends to build up a deeper conversation around the entire gamut of admissions, academics, training, projects, and placements involving the stakeholders at various levels.
Engineering Watch intends to start a movement across the engineering community by catalyzing the channelization of their extraordinary energies for catapulting India's economic growth. It plans to induce an altogether different thinking paradigm amongst the various stakeholders through its wide range of initiatives - monthly magazine, portal, social media, campaigns & events - whereby the challenges are seen more of an opportunity rather than constrictions.
“We plan to engage a number of diverse communities by bringing out a number of special issues and organizing a number of events. For e.g we are organizing an Educational Technology Roundtable on the occasion of the 125th birth anniversary of Dr. C V Raman in which we would be giving away Educational Technology Awards to all those institutions which have made an innovative and effective use of technology in transforming their various educational processes. We are planning to bring out India's first comprehensive resource guide on Educational Technologies based on the classification of American Society of Engineering Education,” says Raghav, charting out their plans.
Their plans include felicitation of 100 educational entrepreneurs who have transformed engineering education in the country by setting up institutions of eminence across the country.
Engineers must give a look at Engineering Watch!
