Over past few days, I have had the opportunity to interact with students and faculty from various engineering institutes of the country, especially my alma mater IIT Kanpur. Looking back at my college through the eye of a professional has brought some observations.
To put my thoughts into the right perspective, I would like to mention a quote from Subroto Baagchi's Go Kiss the World. Mr. Bagchi writes, 'One's ability to connect and comprehend is not necessarily a function on one's education'.
'For most socio-economic problems in our country, only 20% of the solution is technical, rest 80% is people related', told me a senior official of one of the most prestigious engineering institute of the India. I couldn't have agreed more.
As engineers, we were wired to develop the best possible technical solutions to the problems. We did not learn to acknowledge and appreciate the implementation, institutionalization and training related issues that show up during the course of implementation. (The nature of the problems that I am referring to here are socio-economic such as those related to health, education and energy) We need solutions that are simple to implement, do not get stuck in the quagmire of bureaucracy and are easy for the end consumer to adopt into his life style. This change in the mindset is one of the key reforms that few years of work has brought on me since my graduation.
I will try to illustrate through an example. For one of my clients, I spent many days designing incentive schemes for its channel partners (dealers, retailers) only to realize that the recipient was incompetent to understand the permutations that would work best for him. As a result, the incentive plan fell flat on the face though technically it was the most optimum solution for achieving company's objectives. Later on, we proposed an incentive plans that was so straightforward that it made me feel redundant in front of the client. Bingo! The channel partners applauded it as they were comfortable with the plan. They worked towards it. Clearly, only 20% of solution to my problem was technical (designing incentive plan). Rest 80% of the challenge was people related - training the channel partners and communicating the incentive plan effectively. It did not matter whether it was technically the best incentive plan or not.
Taking cue from this experience, are we not missing something important in the our education system, engineering in particular? What about the implementation orientation, leadership and soft skill building aspects that make effective professionals? Are these aspects not missing even in best of the institutes in our country? Infact it becomes all the more important in IITs whose students have usually grown up with a spirit of cut throat competition bred by parents and teachers all their life.
Though I have no experience of US education so far, from what I hear I feel that US education system has successfully incorporated all round development into its curriculum. It is achieved through field work, community projects and strong collaboration with the industry. We may have something to learn and adopt from them.
What about faculty in higher education? With no institutional mechanism to train our faculty, how will they connect with new generation of students and nurture them as future leaders. I think my definition of training merits some clarification. Training here does not mean imparting knowledge and skills, but refers to the 'ability to connect' as mentioned by Mr. Bagchi. In professional set ups, there are training programs outlined for all levels - from analyst to the CEO. Why not in education set ups then? The official that I mentioned told me that he had once floated a proposal to set up a leadership development calendar for the faculty. However, the proposal was peacefully turned down by various stake holders involved, majority of whom were faculty themselves. Here too the problem was mostly people related.
To put my thoughts into the right perspective, I would like to mention a quote from Subroto Baagchi's Go Kiss the World. Mr. Bagchi writes, 'One's ability to connect and comprehend is not necessarily a function on one's education'.
'For most socio-economic problems in our country, only 20% of the solution is technical, rest 80% is people related', told me a senior official of one of the most prestigious engineering institute of the India. I couldn't have agreed more.
As engineers, we were wired to develop the best possible technical solutions to the problems. We did not learn to acknowledge and appreciate the implementation, institutionalization and training related issues that show up during the course of implementation. (The nature of the problems that I am referring to here are socio-economic such as those related to health, education and energy) We need solutions that are simple to implement, do not get stuck in the quagmire of bureaucracy and are easy for the end consumer to adopt into his life style. This change in the mindset is one of the key reforms that few years of work has brought on me since my graduation.
I will try to illustrate through an example. For one of my clients, I spent many days designing incentive schemes for its channel partners (dealers, retailers) only to realize that the recipient was incompetent to understand the permutations that would work best for him. As a result, the incentive plan fell flat on the face though technically it was the most optimum solution for achieving company's objectives. Later on, we proposed an incentive plans that was so straightforward that it made me feel redundant in front of the client. Bingo! The channel partners applauded it as they were comfortable with the plan. They worked towards it. Clearly, only 20% of solution to my problem was technical (designing incentive plan). Rest 80% of the challenge was people related - training the channel partners and communicating the incentive plan effectively. It did not matter whether it was technically the best incentive plan or not.
Taking cue from this experience, are we not missing something important in the our education system, engineering in particular? What about the implementation orientation, leadership and soft skill building aspects that make effective professionals? Are these aspects not missing even in best of the institutes in our country? Infact it becomes all the more important in IITs whose students have usually grown up with a spirit of cut throat competition bred by parents and teachers all their life.
Though I have no experience of US education so far, from what I hear I feel that US education system has successfully incorporated all round development into its curriculum. It is achieved through field work, community projects and strong collaboration with the industry. We may have something to learn and adopt from them.
What about faculty in higher education? With no institutional mechanism to train our faculty, how will they connect with new generation of students and nurture them as future leaders. I think my definition of training merits some clarification. Training here does not mean imparting knowledge and skills, but refers to the 'ability to connect' as mentioned by Mr. Bagchi. In professional set ups, there are training programs outlined for all levels - from analyst to the CEO. Why not in education set ups then? The official that I mentioned told me that he had once floated a proposal to set up a leadership development calendar for the faculty. However, the proposal was peacefully turned down by various stake holders involved, majority of whom were faculty themselves. Here too the problem was mostly people related.
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