It is essential for educational institutes to align themselves with the latest innovations and trends to make their students future ready and equipped with latest skills and to make them job-ready, says Prof Pradip Chandra Deka, Vice Chancellor, Sir Padampat Singhania University, Udaipur, Rajasthan, in an interview with Elets News Network (ENN).
What is the vision of the University?
The vision of Sir Padampat Singhania University is to be a leader among educational institutions by building a tradition of innovation, problem solving and interdisciplinary collaboration to meet the changing needs of the society.
Can you share any distinct branch of engineering that your institute offers? What is its scope as far as career prospect is concerned?
From the academic session 2016-17, the university is offering a unique undergraduate multidisciplinary engineering degree programme (B Tech) in Rail Transportation Engineering in collaboration with Hitachi Rail System Ltd, Japan. Unde the programme, Students are exposed to various aspects of Rail Transportation Engineering and also get a paid internship at Hitachi Rail System Ltd, Japan. With the revamp of the railways in India, there will be huge requirement of technically skilled engineers to carry out the modernization work.
From the academic session 2017-18 the university is going to offer undergraduate engineering degree in Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing and Information Security. The scope of these two programmes is very wide and currently, the demand of professionals in these two fields is huge.
How much job-oriented your courses are, especially in the light of latest trends and technologies taking place around the world and the education industry creating global products in terms of fresh pass outs?
To keep pace with the latest technological developments, we update the curriculum every year and incorporate latest teaching-learning methodologies in it. The curriculum is revised as per the latest industry trends and after getting it designed, the same is validated by the respective industry experts.
Faculty members are encouraged to participate in Faculty Development Programmes (FDPs), workshops, seminars, conferences to help them remain abreast with the latest technologies. These approaches have helped us to remain focused on making our students ready for the industry.
Bright students usually know their potentiality and wait for the right opportunity for placement while others may choose to remain satisfied with the first choice.
Do you think traditional engineering discipline is being eclipsed by the emerging ones?
Demand for traditional engineering disciplines will always be there. However, with the changing scenario, curriculum of these disciplines has to be updated and relevant as per the trends.
Do most of the Indian BTech students readily opt for the first job-opportunity during placements? What is your view on it?
Any batch of engineering students is composed of bright, average and below average students. This is why placement opportunities vary from batch to batch. Bright students usually know there potentiality and wait for the right opportunity for placement while others may choose to remain satisfied with the first choice.
What are the new courses the university is going to offer?
Can you share some of the prominent ones with us? At present the University offers UG and PG programmes only in Engineering and Management. Being a University, I believe we should offer all the other programmes which are normally available in traditional Universities. Accordingly, we are taking steps to introduce academic programmes on Science, Humanities, Law, Pharmacy, Hospitality, Liberal Arts etc in phased manner.
