(Keynote address delivered at the national Conference on Power Electronics in Sustainable Energy Development at Amrita University, Coimbatore on 2nd May 2014)
Introduction: The background
During the six
and a half decades after independence education in general and engineering
education in particular have undergone tremendous changes in India. The growth
in numbers has been exponential, remaining more or less stagnant in the initial
years and showing an explosive nature in the recent past. Elsewhere in the
world, advancements in Technology were taking place at a great pace, and we as
a Third World country had to catch up. Jobs in the global market were plenty and
our youth had to grab a fair share of it. The Government was left with no
option other than to open the flood gates of privatization. Entrepreneurs,
small and big started investing in Engineering colleges leading to mushrooming
of degree institutions all over the country. Most of the investors had no lofty
ideals, other than the profit motive. In this rat race, some states went to
ridiculous levels offering engineering seats to all students who applied for
it. Chicken farms were converted overnight to engineering colleges and filled
with aspiring students. Obviously the growth in numbers has not been healthy
and organic, but a great deal unhealthy, erratic and cancerous. Poor
infrastructure, incompetent teachers and a rudderless academic management are
but natural concomitants of this uncontrolled profiteering. Over and above
this, religion, caste, creed and other mafia groups have built their islands
and fortresses in the system, replacing merit and equity with money and
nepotism. Religious groups could effectively cover up their real motives with
the external cover of “Prophet Motive”. Controlling agencies like Universities,
UGC and AICTE were rendered impotent by political forces and money power. Yet
we discuss engineering education because there lie in the core, students,
teachers and institutions not affected by this proliferation and dwindling of
standards.
The Engineer: Expectations
Before
discussing any further we should clearly know what an engineer is expected to
do in the profession and what the content of his education should be.
Engineering was recognized as a learned profession in the West many years after the Industrial Revolution. The advent of steam engine and locomotives necessitated
professionals competent in design, construction and maintenance of engines.
With the divergence of knowledge it became necessary to define new branches
like Civil and Electrical Engineering from the original Mechanical engineering
concerned only with engines. These bifurcations took place in the early
forties. Electronics, Communication, Computer Science and Chemical Engineering developed
as new branches of engineering in the sixties. In spite of this divergence in
knowledge there is something common to all these branches- a fact that students
are unaware of, and educators conveniently forget.
Irrespective of
the branch or field of study the engineering method of problem solving involves
five stages: (1) Identifying the physical problem and all the variables and
constraints (2) Constructing a model (3) Analyzing the model and arriving at a
solution (4) Interpreting the solution in the physical plane (5) Applying the
solution to the original problem. The model referred to could be a physical
model, a mathematical model or even a combination of the two. As problems
become more and more complex, involving larger number of variables and
intractable relationships physical models are difficult to construct and the
engineer has to resort to mathematical modeling. A mathematical model will have
a set of equations describing the relationships among variables, would need
solution procedures and the need to interpret the solutions back to the
physical plane. The engineer’s prowess really lies in his ability to translate
the physical problem to mathematics and back.
Thus the
knowledge base needed for the engineer requires a sound mathematical
foundation. This was a well recognized fact a few decades ago. The most damaging
ill effect of explosive growth of engineering seats and colleges is the influx
of student population without the basic skills in mathematics.
The Student Population: Basic abilities and preparation to learn
While
engineering seats are ever on the increase school education was (and is) undergoing the worst kind of degeneration
in this country. The student gets promoted automatically for ten years and the
pass percent is kept well above 90 in the school final examination. There is no
difference between bright and dull students, as they all get well above 90%. In
the examination they have to write only the answers they were made to memorize
by rote. When they reach the engineering college they expect the teacher to
give them answers to all questions to learn by heart for the examination.
Intellectual effort has vanished from classrooms and independent thinking is
unheard of. A few decades ago a typical engineering student used to score high
marks in mathematical subjects and low in descriptive ones. Today, the table
has turned: maximum failures are seen in mathematical and analytical subjects.
Reasons for this turn-around are easy to identify.
1)
About 50 to 60% of students admitted to
engineering degree programs have very poor learning aptitude and ability,
particularly in mathematical/analytical subjects
2)
Plus Two education had drained out what little
problem solving ability they had in the early stages of schooling
3)
Most of the jobs in the IT sector do not require
real engineers, and non-content programs that ensure a degree would fetch a
remunerative job
Given these
unfortunate circumstances what best can Universities and other educational
institutions do to impart a meaningful engineering education? We should take
the given conditions as constraints on the system (we can certainly find more),
then define our objectives and look for optimal solutions within the solution
space. Removal/reduction of the constraints should be part of a long drawn plan
where the whole country should be involved. The emerging solutions can be
categorized into three: Infrastructure-centered, Student centered and Teacher
centered.
Infrastructure Centered Solutions:
It is true that
the number and quality of teachers did not (and cannot) keep pace with the
increase in number of seats and colleges. The few good teachers available in
better institutions can be utilized to cater to a much larger population if we
depend on modern communication systems and information technology. E-learning
is advocated by many people in power like MHRD, AICTE and some of the IITs. My
considered opinion on this solution is that remote lectures given by experts
can only supplement, and not substitute classroom lectures. This is amply
demonstrated by the failure of MOOC program organized by MIT, USA. They
reported a participation of just five percent in these on-line lectures of high
quality and freedom of choice to students.
I find there are
two types of teaching learning process: I call one of them “pull system” where
a student, desirous of knowing something pulls it out of where it is available,
be it teachers, internet, library, textbooks or journals. The second one is the
“push system” where the teacher tries to push knowledge down the throat of the
unwilling recipient. In India we find that University education goes by and
large in the push system. Under the circumstances I have no hesitation in
asserting that e-learning is a colossal failure in India as a substitute for
classrooms.
Restructuring
the courses to include more practical classes and hands-on experience will
considerably improve the learning process. Except in IT related subjects this
is an expensive solution which managements cannot be persuaded to accept.
Student-Centered Solutions:
The real
solution to the problem should be based on how we should shape up our student.
I firmly believe that there is no such thing called “Teaching”, and that there
is only learning. All that the teachers and the institution can do is to
provide the ambience and conditions to ensure that learning takes place at the
correct pace and direction. The learning process has to go through five stages:
i)
Familiarity
ii)
Memory and Reproduction
iii)
Analysis
iv)
Synthesis
v)
Creativity
A classroom
lecture, done in the popular style of monologue
of the teacher in a silent or unresponsive classroom can, at best give
the student a ‘familiarity’ with the topics discussed. When an examination is
announced some students consult notes or textbooks and try to memorize them in
order to reproduce in the exam paper. About 30 to 40 percent of students do not
do even that, and they are the ones who fail!! Any remedy that aims better
learning should take the student to levels of analysis and synthesis.
Creativity is a far cry, but can be attempted in Project work and some
unconventional courses. Unless we deliberately reorient classroom work the
situation will remain unchanged for years to come.
Fear of
Mathematics is the key to the present malady in engineering education. Equally
important is negligence of linguistic skills. To begin with, we should design a
few bridge programs to get rid of both these deficiencies. Mathematics should
be introduced through demonstrations as a powerful tool of engineering. In such
courses tests and feedback should not be postponed to the last day, but should
take place in the class every day. This should be considered as a preparation to
start learning engineering subjects. It is the deficiency in language that
drives students away from classical textbooks towards street notes and substandard books.
Today, most of
the students sit in the classroom because their physical presence is compulsory
to be eligible to appear for the examination. Contrary to the belief of
teachers and public, virtually no learning takes place in the classroom, and
every student hopes to start learning the subject a few days before the
examination. Is it not a colossal waste of human energy to nail down so many
young people in the classroom from 9am to 4pm where they do not intend to learn
anything? To wit, they idle away in classrooms, postponing the learning
activity to a later, convenient date. Remedy to this serious problem lies with
the teacher.
Teacher Centered Solutions
Teachers live in
an imaginary world of their own, believing that the monologues they spout out
in the classrooms are listened to and understood by the sixty-odd students they
address. Diligent and duty bound, they engage the class in this monologue for
the whole semester until they “finish the portions”. What is the net result of
this exercise? Has any student gone to levels higher than familiarity? If
anybody has answered the questions in a periodical examination it is because
he/she has worked hard after the class hours. Every one of us should find an
answer to the question, “What have my lectures done to the student’s knowledge
level?” An honest answer to this question will be quite depressing. It would
reveal that we were also party to the colossal waste of human energy from nine
to four. It is this ineffective nature of classroom work that has prompted many
to say that the teacher can be replaced by a video screen.
Unlike other
professions University teaching is one to which any raw graduate or postgraduate
can enter without training or experience. Colleges appoint fresh graduates and
send them to classes straightaway. There they emulate the external
characteristics of their own teachers whose teaching may or may not have been
effective. Absence of any norms has led to the present situation where
classroom work of the teacher is not defined, guided or monitored. Habits die
hard, and you get a large number of bad or ineffective teachers even at senior
levels.
Power point
presentations and video-assisted lectures have become common these days. One
agrees that these gadgets make the classes less boring due to their entertainment
value, but I have my own doubts about the efficacy of knowledge transfer.
Granting that the presentations are well prepared, they often tend to be
textbook material presented on the screen.
Feedback systems: The basic
defect of the conventional lecture mode of teaching is that it does not give
any feedback either to the student or the teacher. Neither the teacher nor the
student bothers to know how much learning has taken place in the process. This
feedback may not be critical in the case of descriptive topics where data or
information get transferred in the class. Where analysis and understanding are
needed this feedback is critical. Such continual feedback has the power to
persuade the student to remain alert in the classes and to look up the lessons
taught every day.
A successful
method I have used for many years is called “Monday Quizzes”. On the first day
of every week the teacher faces his class with a small quiz containing two or
three simple questions based on what was taught during the previous week. The
valuation and marking should be done on the same day and the papers returned to
the class next day. It is important to be prompt in doing this. It is also
necessary to discuss the answers and common mistakes after distributing the
answer sheets. Both the teacher and student should realize that the quiz is not
an examination, but an in-process feedback. As the weeks progress even
non-performers try to change their reputation by participating in the feedback
process. By the fourth or fifth week of the semester you will find that the
entire class is with you, resonating with your ideas and discovering that
learning is real fun. The teacher’s personality is of utmost importance in this
endeavour. Unless we can create a set of sympathetic listeners no useful
communication can really take place in the classes.
Summary and Conclusion
This article
describes the constraints like the student quality, attitudes and the challenge
faced in educating a large number of students in a discipline that requires
learning ability and diligence beyond
average levels. The engineer’s task is defined and the need for adequate
preparation in mathematics underlined. The inadequacy of school education and
the resultant levels of students are highlighted. The levels of learning from
familiarity to creativity are examined and the mismatch between the teaching
and learning activities is brought out. The three remedial measures, namely the
infrastructure-centered, student-centered and teacher centered are described
and their appropriate applications suggested.
References: No reference material was used, except my 48 years of
experience and fruitful discussions and interaction with my elders, colleagues
and students.
