Student assessment of quality of engineering education in India: evidence from a field survey
| Published date | 04 February 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/QAE-02-2015-0004 |
| Date | 04 February 2019 |
| Pages | 103-126 |
| Author | Pradeep Kumar Choudhury |
| Subject Matter | Education,Educational evaluation/assessment |
Student assessment of quality of
engineering education in India:
evidence from a field survey
Pradeep Kumar Choudhury
Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Abstract
Purpose –This paper aims to discuss students’assessment of quality related issues in engineering
educationin India.
Design/methodology/approach –The paper uses primary survey data of 1,178 undergraduate
engineering students in Delhi,India, in 2009-2010. Students’experience and views of four important aspects
such as teaching methods used inthe classroom, evaluation pattern, skills acquired by studentsduring the
course and the involvement of students in different activities other than classroom teaching are discussed
using descriptivestatistics and correlation to examine the quality issues.
Findings –The study finds that the lecture method is still dominant in the teaching and learning of
engineering institutions compared to technical demonstration and laboratory work. Around half of the
engineering students reported that they had never gone through any field work or industrial visits during
their entire program of study. Involvement of students in the activities other than classroom teaching (e.g.
working on research projects,attending engineering internships, studying a foreign languageand opting for
interdisciplinarycourses) is more prevalent in government institutions compared to privateinstitutions. The
findings suggest that engineering institutions (particularly private colleges)should change their focus from
traditional methods of teachingand evaluation of students to interactive methods of learning to improve the
qualityof technicaleducation in India.
Originality/value –The literature reveals that the quality assessment of engineering and technical
education in India is largely based on the information collected from stakeholders other than students.
Therefore, this study contributes a new dimension to the existing literature by considering students’
assessmentof the quality of engineering education.
Keywords Evaluation, Education sector, Eduction, Quality, Educational policy
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
India has a large higher education system comprising more than 39,050 colleges, 903
universities and 10,011 stand alone institutions –the third largest in the world in student
numbers (with 36.6 million),after China and the USA. Quite interestingly, a large partof the
expansion of higher education in India (particularly after the post-liberalisationperiod) has
been because of the growth of engineering and technical education. During the past two
decades (1991-2011),the number of institutions of higher education (including all disciplines)
in India has increased withthe compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8 per cent; whereas
in engineering education, it has gone up at the CAGR of 15 per centper year (MHRD,1992,
This paper is a part of the authors completed PhD work in the NUEPA, New Delhi, India. The author
is grateful to Professor Jandhyala B. G. Tilak (mentor and PhD supervisor) for his guidance to write
the paper. However, the errors in the paper, if any, are of the author.
Engineering
education in
India
103
Received2 February 2015
Revised29 November 2017
17September 2018
Accepted24 December 2018
QualityAssurance in Education
Vol.27 No. 1, 2019
pp. 103-126
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0968-4883
DOI 10.1108/QAE-02-2015-0004
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
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2011). The overwhelming growth of engineering education in India is also linked with the
National Policy on Education(Government of India, 1986) that identified technicaleducation
as one of the most significant components of human resource development, with great
potential for contributing to the national economy and improving quality of life. Technical
education is recognised as the basic input for national development and strengthening the
industry, economy and the quality of life of India (AICTE, 1994).
Furthermore, the overwhelming expansion of engineering education, both in terms of
institutions and student enrolment (particularly after 1990s) is a market-mediated process
facilitated mostly through private sector (Agarwal, 2006;Varghese, 2015), which raised the
issue of quality in a serious way (Sharan, 2004;Kumar et al.,2005;Rao, 2006;Qamar, 2008;
Biswas et al., 2010) . Most of theseinstitutions are not able to mantain the quality of teaching
as they lack infrastructure,the required faculty strength and basic equipment forlaboratory
work. A minority of engineering students in the country receive quality training in elite
institutions such as Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of
Technology (NITs), while the majority of students receive low-quality training in non-elite
institutions that are in the domain of the private sector. This has clearly influenced the
employability of engineering graduates in the country. A recent survey by a New Delhi-
based employment solutions company revealed that only 7 per cent engineering graduates
were employable in India. Highlighting the reasons for this, the study reported that fresh
graduates lacked understanding of basic conceptsand also engineering institutions did not
make the effort to ensure that the candidates developed their skills in a manner that
provided them with the requisite skills to communicate better when interviewed[1]. The
UNESCO (2010a,2010b)Report on Engineering Education identified the need to increase the
number of high-caliber engineersentering the industry and described the need as being both
critical and urgent.
A study by NASSCOM-McKinsey Report (2005) revealed that hardly 25 per cent of the
students passing out of the country’s engineering institutions (largely private) were
employable, which could lead to a shortage of qualified labour. The motive for the
involvement of the private sector in higher educationand predominantly in engineering and
technical education, changed from philanthropy to profit with the advent of neo-liberal
market policies (Tilak, 2005, p. 4035). Private institutions did not attach sufficient value to
the necessity of having competent teachersand were inclined to merely satisfy the numbers
and not the capabilities to adequately meet the challenging requirements of the academic
programs (AICTE, 2006). Quite surprisingly, faculty data for eight major states obtained
from the All India Council of Technical Education showedthat engineering colleges “share”
faculty members to meet official norms; and as high as 90 per cent of these institutions had
at least one teacher whose name also featuredon the rolls of another college (Rukmini, 2016).
There were at least 50,000 such “duplicate”names in the engineering colleges. The study by
Loyalka et al. (2014) found that BRIC institutions (particularly in India) had considerably
less opportunity to find faculty with PhDs than institutions in many developed countries.
The study also revealed that, in 2010, the proportion of faculty with doctoral degrees in
India was less than 10 per cent and more importantly the qualityof PhD graduates appeared
to be low due to the lack of qualifiedadvisers and adequate laboratory facilities (p. 986).
For quite some time, it has been recognised that strategic intervention was needed to
improve the quality of technical education in India as it was increasingly important to
produce highly trained professionals to compete in the knowledge economy. Many studies
and policy documents in higher and technical education in India suggested various
frameworks to promote quality. However, India has endured an increasingly mediocre
higher and technical education system for decades (Altbach, 2005). Many suggestions have
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