Technical education in Assam
Sir,
This refers to the news item published in your esteemed daily (AT, July
10), regarding increase of seats in technical institutions of Assam and your
timely editorial Technical education (AT, July 12) . In different meetings
and forums, the Chief Minister and the Education Minister of Assam declared
that this year (2007) is being observed as the Year of Education. The private
university bill has been passed in the Assembly different private parties are
invited to open up institutions with professional courses. These steps taken by
Assam Government to revamp the education scenario of the State are very much
encouraging.
In this context, I would like to highlight some issues related to technical
education in Assam. There are about 700 seats available in two State owned
engineering colleges and one NIT at Silchar. The number of aspirants against
those seats are many thousands. Obviously many students every year go to other
States like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Orissa to pursue engineering
courses. So, this necessitates the opening up of new engineering colleges in
our State to stop brain drain as well as money drain. The opinion of our
Education Minister is that it is not possible for the government to start and
run so many institutions. This is also absolutely right. But the question is
how many engineering and other professional institutions the government can
run? What does the Education Minister mean by the word run? If it is just to
pay the salaries to the staff, it is okay. But in true sense, government has
failed to run a single technical institution in Assam. At
present, under the Technical Education Department, the Government of Assam is
running two engineering colleges and seven polytechnics. If one visits the
campuses of the two engineering colleges of Assam one will be surprised to see
that there is no boundary wall in the campus. The student hostels and staff
quarters are in uninhabitable condition. The approach road, power supply and
water supply (with almost no water) are in pathetic condition. There is
tremendous shortage of laboratory and class room spaces as no new building has
come up in the last forty years. No official internet facility is available in
both the colleges. Students themselves manage their broad band connectivity in
hostels. The maintenance and running costs of labortories are raised from the
students in the name of Laboratory Fund. Recently the Education Department
has passed an order to deposit the laboratory fund to the government which is
at present managed by a committee headed by the Principal.
Although there are lots of brilliant engineering graduates available, almost
30 to 50 per cent faculty positions are lying vacant in different departments.
The present infrastructure in both the colleges is totally inadequate for a
good quality technical education. Still, Assam Engineering College has made a
tremendous job by recruiting 90 per cent of their products (2007 batch) in
different MNCs and PSUs. Recently the government has passed an order by which
60 seats in AEC and 20 seats in JEC have been increased. But at present, there
is no additional class room and laboratory space available to accommodate those
60 students in AEC.
Now the Government is talking much about opening up of private engineering
colleges in Assam. This is, of course, a good decision. But, the problem is
that no private engineering college in the country generally offers courses
like civil, mechanical and electrical engineering. Then, who will teach these
three core engineering branches in Assam? The answer is obviously the two
engineering colleges in Guwahati and Jorhat. If the Government does not show
any interest in infrastructure development of these two colleges, definitely
quality of our human resources will deteriorate and it will affect our economy
by increasing unemployment problem.
Yours etc., A RETIRED TEACHER, Assam Engineering College, Guwahati.
(LETTER TO THE EDITOR, The Assam Tribune,29.08.2007)
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