Remove disparity in education, says AICTE

Chennai, Nov 5: All India Council for Technical Eduction (AICTE) Vice-Chairman R A Yadav today called upon the technical institutions in the country to work shoulder to shoulder to overcome disparity in the quality of education.

The institutions must also work in close coordination to tackle the shortage of qualified teachers and pervasiveness of poor quality of technical manpower, he said while addressing the ninth Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE), State Level Annual Convention, organised by self financing RMK Engineering College and sponsored by AICTE here.

Mr Yadav said, ''The faculty should be role models to students by creating values through demonstrations than merely preaching.

Strategic partnerships with industries help students sharpen their skills, as 70 per cent of the education comes through practice. This would sow the seed of entrepreneurship in them.'' He said only 9.3 per cent of students in the age group 17-23 years get technical education which was very low compared to countries such as the US and China. Also the opportunity for them to work abroad would be grabbed of unless they are provided quality education, he said.

Mr Yadav said the country was all set to enter the world which would be fully IT driven, globally integrated and vibrant ''The need of the hour is to get updated, change faster and have competitive edge,'' he said.

Addressing the Convention, N R Shetty, President, of ISTE, said. ''People all over the world look for Indian brains as we now have more youths. To sustain this, all technical institutions should evolve effective models useful for imparting quality education and producing excellent manpower.'' Seminars, debates and conventions of this kind are being held to attain the objective of achieving technical excellence, Mr Shetty said while addressing a seminar on ''Engineering Education in Retrospect and Prospect: A Systems Approach.'' R S Munirathinam, Chairman of RMK Engineering College and other dignitaries present at the Convention, attended by more than 150 faculties, representing technical institutions from all over Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

Mr Yadav appreciated the college for its state-of-the-art infrastructure required for imparting quality education and its attention to cultural values.

He also released the CD containing presentations of 85 papers of the seminar and gave away ISTE awards for the best engineering and polytechnic colleges.

The award winners included Adhiyaman College of Engineering, Hosur; CSI Polytechnic College, Salem; Mepco Schlenk Engineering College, Sivakasi; VLB Janakiammal Polytechnic College, Coimbatore and NPA Centenary Polytechnic College, Kotagiri, among others.

UNI