Most of the engineering institutes have to plan for reforms in introducing various interdisciplinary educational programs to continuously develop themselves. This presentation provides the strategies for planning and implementing suitable reforms.

1. STRATEGY FOR
REFORMS
Dr.V.Thanikachalam

2. STRATEGIES
 Empowerment and accountability of
academic institutions
 Optimum utilization of resources
 Mobilization of additional financial resources
 Establishing effective quality assurance
mechanisms
 Networking to enhance capacity, improve
quality and produce excellence
 Increasing access and reducing regional
imbalances

3. EMPOWERMENT AND
ACCOUNTABILITY OF ACADEMIC
INSTITUTIONS
 Enhance empowerment with full
accountability of institutions to select high
quality
 Dismiss faculty who are corrupt & dishonest
 To grant promotions on the basis of
performance & achievement

4. ESTABLISH AT EACH INSTITUTION
AN ADVISORY BOARD
 Composed of alumni and a mixture of industrial,
academic & civic leaders

5. ESTABLISH A SYSTEM FOR ENSURING EXTERNAL
AND INTERNAL ACCOUNTABILITY
 External accountability
– Accreditation
– Performance audits
 Internal accountability
– Commitment of faculty, learners, and the management
– Ensure timely action for conflict resolution &
maintenance of education standards
– Establish a corporate management style of functioning
– Responsibility / authority delegated from head of the
institution to heads of departments
– From heads pf department to faculty
– Decision – making should be decentralized with full
accountability
– Clear symptoms at national, regional and institutional
levels to help governance, planning and monitoring of
the system

6. OPTIMUM UTILIZATION OF
RESOURCES
 Most institutions are suffering from both the
shortage & wastage of resources
 Strengthen and build an good existing
institutions
 Increase the involvement of research
institutions in higher education
 Review periodically the continuation of all
academic programs
 Re-appropriate resources from non-viable
programs with low employment potential to
programs in high demand

7. INITIATIVES
 Establish reasonable, financially tenable
student / teacher / other staff ratios, keeping in
view the new knowledge based tools for
teaching/ learning process and modern and
simplified methods of management

8. UTILIZATION OF SPACE
& EQUIPMENT
 Maximize the utilization of available space &
equipment
– By optimizing student intake
– By adjusting the academic calendar and time table,
– By introducing additional intake.
– By adjusting the academic calendar and time table
– By introducing R&D continuing education
programs and consultant services in all institutions

9. DROP OUT & FAILURE
 Analyze all courses of large student drop out
and failure rates
 Take necessary measures to minimize these
 Analyze the causes of campus unrest
 Minimize the wastages of human resources
competencies

10. PRIVATE INVESTMENTS IN S&T
EDUCATION
 Encourage larger private investments in S&T
education
 Allow limited public funding to self-financing
institutions on a competitive basis for quality
improvement of teachers, curricula &
research

11. PERIODIC ASSESSMENT
 Establish clear criteria for assessing success or
failure of all competitive grant awards to both
public & self-financing institutions

12. PERFORMANCE AUDIT
 Establish a system of compulsory periodic
performance audit of all institutions

13. MOBILIZATION OF ADDITIONAL
FINANCIAL RESOURCES
 Fix student fees as a significant percentage of real
costs, allowing large public subsidies only to the
deserving students from economically weaker families
 Build institutionally managed endowment funds from
corporate fees, donations & consultancy fees raised
 Obtain funds for sponsored research projects &
training programmes from government projects,
multinational agencies, international development
banks

14. REWARD SYSTEM
 Provide faculty fees as negotiated and agreed
in the contract for externally funded projects
 Do not siphon the funds through false claims
 Do not pay to the sub-consultants over and
above the contracted amount
 Do not divert the “letters of interest” to the
external agencies without circulating to the
institute’s departments

15. INTERNATIONAL PARTICIPATION
 Admit and train foreign students on an
international competitive basis
 Collaborate with well-established institutions
aboard in research, educational projects &
programs and conferences
 Solicit international funding for the same
 Bid for consultancy projects in engineering &
technology under World Bank, Asian
Development Bank, UNDP, UNESCO, SIDA,
CIDA, DANIDA, etc…

16. DEVELOP TRAINING PROGRAMMES
FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
 Through Government of India projects
under Ministry of External Affairs &
Ministry of Finance
 Develop country specific training
programmes through ITEC, SCAAP &
TCS

17. ESTABLISH CAMPUS IN OTHER
COUNTRIES
 Develop country specific programmes under
WTO & organize
 Establish long-term programmes under
G.A.T.S

18. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
RIGHTS
 Patent and market inventions and updated
technologies
 Provide industry specific projects to the
graduate students
 Prepare MoUs for utilizing the inventions
made for industrial applications
 Allow on a commercial basis use of campus
facilities for industries, government
departments

19. GENERATION OF FUNDS
 Through alumni meet
 NRIs
 Corporate sector

20. ESTABLISH QUALITY ASSURANCE
MECHANISMS
 Improve the faculty, the effectiveness of teaching and
the evaluation process
 Develop industry relevant curricula
 Optimally utilize the crated infrastructure
 Accredit the educational programmes offered
 Implement transparent monitoring system
 Take corrective actions where necessary
 Implement 360 0 evaluation
 Co - opt adjunct professors
 Develop & implement guidelines for industrial
consultancy
 Fix the ratio between external client based visits &
internal physical presence for normal educational
activities
 Recognise & reward the faculty for their achievement

21. RECRUIT HIGH PERFORMING
QUALIFIED FACULTY
 Recruit the faculty based on their academic &
consultancy works completed
 The comparative statement of academic performance
of candidates should be scrutinized by the candidates
 If any suppression or omissions are detected, they
should be corrected before interviews are conducted
 The selected candidates names are to be made public
 The service and recruitment rules should not be
altered without getting the governing councils
approval
 The assessment of the candidates should be bases on
the specific procedure

22. SUPPORTING RESEARCH WORK OF
THE FACULTY MEMBERS
 The research proposals of the faculty should
be forwarded to the funding agencies
 If they are retained, the reasons for retention
should be made known to the faculty
 The research funds are to be utilized as per the
agreements
 The travel assistance for presenting the papers
are to be paid as per the AICTE &
Government Norms
 The travel assistance should not be reduced on
flimsy reasons

23. ENSURE RESEARCH AUTONOMY
 Ensure the utilization of the individual
creativity
 Do not compel the researchers to include
unrelated faculty in the team
 Ensure the publications, research reports,
technical notes & research papers are not
tampered
 Implement career advancement as per the
AICTE/UGC Norms

24. CURRICULUM REFORMS
 Conduct periodical reviews
 Develop industry specific curriculum through
consortium approach
 Recognize the development of industrial
corridors
 Review the development of industrial
corridors
 Review the human resources requirements

25. CONDUCT INDUSTRIAL EXPOSURES
 Assess the advances of the modern industrial
production process
 Facilitate industrial exposures to the faculty
 Constitute advisory committees for reviewing
the existing curricula & suggesting the
changes
 Collect feedback from faculty once in a year

26. INDUSTRIAL PARTICIPATION IN THE
CURRICULUM EVALUATION &
REVISION
 Conduct meetings with the participation of
industrial representatives, research &
development organizations and technical
universities
 Put the draft reports on the web & invite
comments

27. Thank you!