Commissioner of Technical Education-restructuring of curriculum

Sri City, August 9, 2022: Mr. Pola Bhaskar, IAS, Commissioner of Collegiate & Technical Education, Government of Andhra Pradesh presided over  an interactive meeting in which the senior managers of the Sri City industrial units, senior officials of Department of Technical Education and the principals of the government polytechnics in Tirupati, Chittoor, Nellore, Kadapa and Annamayya districts took part. There was a brainstorming discussion on the ‘Restructuring of Diploma Courses in Govt. Polytechnic of AP.’ Stating that there is an immediate need to restructure courses in technical education, the industry representatives urged the Commissioner of Technical Education to revamp the  course curriculum at Diploma level across the state in tune with the industry requirements.

Applauding the positive response of Sri City and the industrial units, the commissioner also agreed that there is an urgent need for updating and reforming the syllabus. He desired to establish synergy between industry and institutes through active interaction and nurturing the needs and ideas among all the stakeholders, viz., students, faculty and industry experts. “Such collaboration helps in updating the knowledge of students and bridges the gap between the Academia and Industry,” he added. Stressing on the importance of updating and reforming the syllabus, he felt that curriculum should lay more emphasis on practical knowledge than theoretical, engaging students more with laboratory assignments rather than on theory.  Also, he felt this initiative will definitely transform students into effective, knowledgeable and ‘focused professionals’ and improve their placement opportunities.

Requesting the industry representatives to offer inputs for introducing tailor-made technical courses with appropriate curriculum in different emerging areas at diploma level, he said,“While in colleges, students are not aware about workplace expectations, and hence awareness is to be created by exposing them with real-time workplace. Internships works very well to bridge the gap between academia and industry, and this needs be made mandatory as a part of diploma curriculum. For this industry should come forward to offer Internships,” Mr. Bhaskar said.

Thanking the commissioner for taking the initiative of taking feedback from industries on modernising technical courses, Mr. Ravindra Sannareddy said,”Technical education syllabus is one of the highly debated topics in these days, and there is a general opinion that the outdated syllabus should be scrapped and completely restructured with latest topics, with a balanced approach.” Stating that survival of industry largely depends on the improved, innovative and new technologies, he suggested,”In line with the industry requirements there is an urgent need to revise the outdated syllabus and impart more of practical knowledge to students.” Assuring support he said that Sri City will act as a catalyst to make this experiment of Academia-Industry-Government partnership yielding fruitful results in orienting the students to the industry needs.

Several industry representatives, including those from Hunter Douglas, Venture, Alstom, NS Instruments, Toray, Isuzu and Tata Foodz, among others, highlighted the areas in which new technologies are developing and expressed the opinion that special attention should be paid to updating curricula in accordance with industry standards and requirements and introducing new courses as specialisation in various engineering fields! such as mechatronics, refrigeration, special painting technology, Plastics and Polymers product design & mould technology, machinery maintenance engineering, injection moulding, specialised welding, Food Processing. etc., They offered to provide students with a year of hands-on training at the centres of excellence established by industry. In order for the industry to choose candidates, it was suggested that the information on students who graduate from various courses and specialisations be posted on the portal of technical education, on a regular basis.

The principals of the polytechnics have expressed that it was a good opportunity to interact with industry and know precisely their requirements and the emerging technologies. They all felt that with industry collaboration, curriculum can be restructured for producing employable students.

Dr. Narayana Rao, Joint Secretary, Dept. of Technical Education proposed vote of thanks.