Published : Tuseday, 05 August, 2014 02:44 PM
As a part of the schemes undertaken in the second phase of implementation of Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme, IIM Raipur inaugurated a 6 day long program on Faculty Development for Technical Education. This program has attendees from the states of West Bengal, Orissa, Jharkhand, Tripura and Chhattisgarh. It has been designed to equip the attendees to work on five projects namely; ‘Accreditation and Washington Accord’, ‘How to achieve Academic Excellence’, ‘Academia-Industry Partnership’, ‘Teaching Pedagogy’ and ‘Research and Publications.’The learnings from this programme will be implemented by the participants back at their institutions.
Prof. B.S.Sahay, Director IIM Raipur, in his welcome note emphasised on the lack of employable graduates and the degrading quality of education. He encouraged the participants to engage in mutual learning to do something collectively about these problems. Prof. B.S. Sahay said, “Let us do something meaningful and it is the time for giving back to the society.”
Dr. Sanjeev Prashar, Program Coordinator, introduced the session program, the faculty coordinators and the participants. He called upon Mr. Amit Agarwal, Secretary, Department of Technical Education, Govt. of Chhattisgarh, who was the chief guest for the event. He congratulated the participants on being a part of the technical department who have changed the image of India in the world from that of a land of snake charmers to that of “technical drivers”. He explained the evolution of a university and highlighted the problems in the Indian education system. He stressed upon the fact that supply has ceased to be an issue; however the real issues are quality and consumer choice. This should be looked at as an opportunity to re-think the system, unlearn the way we have been doing things, getting more autonomy and de-centralization. He emphasized that “the training here will equip you for the upcoming challenges”. Quoting Dr S.Radhakrishnan, he implored the attendees to take charge of their institutions. He asked them to create and bring back the idea of an institution.
Prof. M. K. Kannadasan, Program Co-ordinator, proposed the vote of thanks.
The theme for the first day of the FDP program was ‘Understanding Institutional Needs and Self’. Prof. B.S. Sahay conducted an exclusive session on ‘Achieving Academic Excellence’ with the participants.
He suggested that Indian technical institutions be made of global level. For that, he emphasized on hiring faculty from top Indian and foreign Universities (Europe, North America, South East Asia etc.) “At least one-third of faculty should go under Faculty Exchange Programme for teaching and research at partner institutions. Institutes should invite similar number of Faculty members under Faculty Exchange Programme for teaching and research .Moreover, foreign faculty members should also be invited to teach on short term contract basis. Faculty members should be encouraged to teach and do research abroad.” He said. He also suggested the institutes to send faculty members for FDP to top university in the world .Research incentives should also be provisioned to attract top faculty members.
The curricula of Technical Institutes should be a good mix of Academic rigour, content & discipline, value-based education (Values, Ethics & CSR), application oriented contemporary electives and best global practices.
Citing the cases of infrastructural constraints of Indian institutes such as lack of state-of-the art digital library, On-line Systems,Simulation Class Rooms, Smart Class Rooms (Digital Boards, Video Conferencing, LCD Display Boards, Projection systems, seating arrangements etc) and Modern Residency, he encouraged the institutes to fill these infrastructural gaps.
An institute should focus on generating knowledge through research, transferring knowledge through education & training and disseminating knowledge through publications & consulting.
This program aims at helping professors so that they can help the students become effective leaders who can transform organizations. This in turn would help facilitate creative thinking and develop entrepreneurial skills as well as professional competence to face international competition. He spoke of the necessity of developing a global mindset to meet the challenges of international competition.
Post his session, participants worked on the projects along with their faculty coordinators. There will be presentations followed by the Q and A sessions on these projects in the subsequent days of the Faculty Development Program.
The theme for the second day of the program will be ‘Learning Teaching Methodology’ and participants will attend sessions on ‘Participant Centred Learning’ by Prof. Vinita Sahay, ‘Improving Teaching Learning Process’ by Prof. P.R.S. Sarma, ‘Evaluation and Assessment Techniques’ by Prof. M. Kannadasan and ‘Using Feedback for Self Development’ by Prof. P.R.S.Sarma. “
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