Viewpoint
Onkar Singh
Technical Education at a Crossroads
T
echnical education in India was in response to a felt need of nationbuilding. Once again, the time has come to heed the call of the country, crying out for reforms to rejuvenate this much-maligned stream.
India’s tryst with technical education began in 1847, with the establishment of the Civil Engineering College at Roorkee for training engineers, overseers and draughtsmen on the recommendations of then Lieutenant Governor of North West Province, Mr James Thomson. However, in the days of the Raj, Indians were not allowed to study in this college. But with passage of time, after around 20 years, the number of Indian students exceeded European students. Very soon, three more engineering colleges, at Calcutta, Madras and Pune, were established to meet the requirement of engineers.
A Historical Perspective History shows that in 1884-85, the total number of students in the four engineering colleges was 608, while in survey schools and industrial schools it was 465 and 1379 respectively. Even at the end of the 19th century, India had four degree-level engineering colleges, around 20 survey and technical institutions and about 50 industrial schools. After World War I, looking at the need for trained engineers and educated youth, some more institutions came up, among them were BHU, Varanasi (1916), HBTI Kanpur (1921), Bihar
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EduTech  July 2012
Engineering College, Patna (1924), Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad (1926), Andhra University, Vizag (1933), UDCT, Bombay (1934), AMU, Aligarh (1935). In the pre-Independence years, in spite of all efforts, the student intake of different engineering institutions could go up to only 2,500. Subsequently, numerous initiatives were taken by the government and significant number of premier institutions like IITs, RECs and other statefunded and private colleges came up.
Technical Education Today Today, India has 31,324 colleges, 559 universities and university level institutions, while there were only 500 colleges and 20 universities at the time of Independence. Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of the country alone accounts for four central universities, 21 state universities, seven private universities and seven deemed-to-be universities. In the technical education sector, the approved intake has currently blown up to around 8.5 lakh in the engineering and 1.5 lakh in the management education sector respectively. This shows the keenness amongst students for education and the potential for establishing