Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women (IGDTUW)
Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women (IGDTUW)
Prof Nupur Prakash, Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women
(IGDTUW), talks about the initiatives undertaken by the university for the betterment of the students
How important is to have a strong academia-industry linkage for an engineering institute and how it is beneficial to the students?Institutes across the world are coming up with new ways of imparting education. How are you bringing innovation in pedagogy at your institute?
We are offering electives through NPTEL digital Lecture series and e-learning modules on COURSERA and EDEX platform.
In order to prepare industry-ready engineers, a strong academia-industry linkage is necessary for a technical university. We have revised our course curriculum by involving experts from industry and have set up labs after collaborating with the industry.
Please share some of the unique initiatives taken by your institute. How can the gap between industry and academia be bridged?
We have forged academia alliances with industries like ARM, Texas Instruments, Atmel, Nokia, Intel, Mahindra & Mahindra and Fluer Daniel for establishing labs on mobile programming, embedded systems and automobile design.
Students complain that most engineering institutes pay more attention towards imparting theoretical knowledge rather than giving practical assignments. Has this trend changed in the last few years?
Our course curriculum has strong practical and lab component. A project designbased approach is followed in all engineering programmes of our university.
India may get the full-fledged membership status of the Washington Accord by June, enabling global recognition of Indian degrees and improving mobility of students and engineers. In your opinion, how it is going to help Indian students and engineering education system?
Only reputed colleges will benefit from the Washington Accord status because a very stringent criterion is followed for accreditation under Washington Accord. Very few colleges and IITs will qualify for Washington Accord status.
What is the importance of an incubation centre and tell us about your plans to install one?
We plan to start a Knowledge Park in our University in 2015, which will have an Entrepreneurship Development Cell, Incubation Centre and Continuing Education Cell. The idea is to incubate new concepts, business plans and innovative ideas initiated by students and faculty.
How has been your college’s placement in recent years? Do you think there is sufficient demand in the industry for the engineering graduates?We achieve 100 percent placement every year with our students getting multiple job offers. Competent industry-ready engineering graduates will always be in demand.
What are the new engineering courses, which are becoming popular?
Courses on green technology, energy studies and nanotechnology have become very popular. We plan to offer specialised course in automobile engineering and mechatronics in future. We are also offering M Tech programmes in mobile computing, information security and robotics.
In India, there are multiple agencies which look into the accreditation, but majority of them have failed to bring quality. In your opinion, does accreditation per-se helps in enhancing the quality of education?
Yes, it does. National Board of Accreditation and National Assessment and Accreditation Council are very effective accreditation bodies, which ensure that good quality in technical education is maintained in accredited institutes.
