New Delhi: Welcoming the distinguished and august gathering of Vice-Chancellors of Technical / affiliating Universities, Directors of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs), National Institutes of Technical Teachers Training and Research (NITTTRs) and other premier institutes along with Chairpersons of All India Boards (AIBs), Members of the Executive Committee of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and Principal Secretaries / Education Secretaries / DTEs of various States / UTs, Prof. R.A. Yadav, acting Chairman, AICTE described the conference as a modest beginning in the direction of initiating dialogue and building consensus.

Critical issues regarding technical education were deliberated and a number of suggestions and recommendations were proposed.

The theme on "Access, Equity and Inclusion" focused on:

- The need for developing professional skilled manpower

- Concerned about the very low levels of funding for research

- Initiatives taken by the Government such as enhancement in the numbers and amounts of scholarships and fellowships including JRFs and SRFs, the Vigyan Jyoti Shivirs etc.

- Measures for faculty development such as enhancement of the Age of Superannuation, constitution of the UGC Pay Commission, revamping of academic Staff Colleges, implementation of the recommendations of Professor P Rama Rao Committee Report, strengthening of QIP, INDEST, INFLIBNET, and Open Distance Learning.

- Introduction of e-governance in the functioning of AICTE.

Challenges that confront us such as expansion with access, inclusion and affordability, removing imbalances, enabling faculty development, R&D, innovation and curriculum development:

- Urgent need to re-think the salary structure for the faculty

- The desiring and the deserving must not be deprived access to quality education

- Great power of the human mind and its increasing importance in the times to come.

- Setting up Action Committees for developing a concrete plan of action and implementation with full involvement of stakeholders.

The theme on "Quality Assurance and Washington Accord" highlighted the following:

- Hardly 25% of the Indian engineering graduates are employable.

- Shortage of competent and qualified faculty was the core issue

- Whether the graduates of NBA-accredited programmes are really more acceptable to the industry needs to be studied.

- A study should be conducted to examine whether there is a perceptible difference in employability of graduates from the accredited and the unaccredited programmes.

- NBA should be an independent body involving industry and professional bodies, UGC, AICTE, etc.

- A mechanism be developed for better correlation between NAAC and NBA.

- New parameter- a placement track record after 10 to 15 years of graduation rather than immediately after graduation.

Key ingredients for success of top-notch institutions in India:

- Robust faculty recruitment processes
- Quality of curriculum
- Institutional support mechanisms
- Regular updating of curriculum
- Academic freedom
- A strong governance system with proper checks and balances
- An emphasis on soft skills development

In the third session on "Assessment of Manpower and Skills Requirement including Need for Expansion and up gradation of Polytechnics", the following points were raised:

- State, central and private Education providers should work in unison.

- State Government may provide the land (as already done successfully by the Govt. of Rajasthan)

- Central govt. may fund the non-recurring establishment cost

- Private promoters may take care of the running expenses

- Same infrastructure may be used to conduct graduate engineering
courses during the day and run diploma programme in the evenings.

- Polytechnics may be encouraged to run two shifts to promote or to accommodate more students.

- Diploma and Degree level institutions may also run vocational skill developed programmes introduce a scheme for Testing and Certification for workers with skills acquired by non-formal mode.

- Employability factor of the students

- Students should be made trainable and tradable to make them more employable.

- Polytechnics may be encouraged to offer courses in the service sector as per market demand

- Specific programmes should be offered in the hospitality sector like tourism, aviation etc may be offered

- Programmes to create Managers specially trained for Hospitality industry e.g. MBA in Hotel Management

- Management based degree programme should be offered along with skill-based diploma programmes.

In the technical session on Academic Reforms the suggestions that were made included the:

- Need for a broad-based undergraduate engineering education

- Model curricular framework in engineering and technology

- Need for a teacher-anchored education for narrating multi-dimensional analytical thinking capability with technology as the main facilitator.

- Integrating information and communication technologies with management

- Need for setting up of Centers of Excellence

- Grading system on a ten point scale and a semester system rather than trimester system.

- Importance of evaluation in the learning process

The theme of "Faculty Development", stressed that in order to attract bright, research oriented youngsters to take up a career in teaching, and he proposed several strategies such as:

- Incentives

- Scope to improve qualifications

- Improvement of social status

- Teaching methodology to be included in the curriculum of Master level courses.

- Part time Master's Course and sequential Summer Courses in the form of Capsule courses in summer/ winter vacation.

- Augmentation of faculty

- Attraction and retention of faculty

- Up-gradation of faculty qualification and competence

An action plan to be devised based on:

- Enhancement of retirement age of faculty
- Total reward strategy for faculty
- Launching PG programmes in professional areas of Management.
- Creation of an enabling environment to attract faculty and retention.

1. E-learning as a tool for faculty development

2. Industrial visit to be part of curriculum to provide real life projects

3. Case based teaching and sharing of experiences

4. Teaching methodology to be included in Master's level progamme/ part of summer project

5. Industrial experience be given due weightage for faculty selection / promotion

6. Part time M.Tech. courses run by private institutions should be approved and regularized by the AICTE.

The technical session VI on the theme "Industry Institute Interface including Public Private Partnership" emphasized:

- The need for skilled technical man power in line with the double digit economic growth of country

- Lack of common vision among the concerned players resulted in the involvement of industry only in placement activities& student project work and left a lot to be desired in the areas of curriculum &faculty development, quality assurance, research activities etc.,

The technical session VII on "Role of AICTE in the changing environment and global competitiveness" proposed:

- Setting up a separate standing committee on each theme to evolve a comprehensive road map for AICTE.