Engineering Courses in India and their Admission Criteria

There are a variety of educational institutions in India offering technical education. The prominent ones are given below:

Indian Institutes of Technology also known as IITs, are autonomous universities that draft their own curricula. There are in all 23 IITs in India spread across the circumference of the country. They offer Bachelor of Technology i.e. B.Tech and Master of Technology also known as M.Tech. courses, as well as Ph.D programmes in a variety of subjects. Admission to undergraduate B.Tech and integrated M.Tech programs are through JEE Advanced (the Joint Entrance Examination Advanced) conducted by the National Testing Agency, an Indian government agency that has been approved by the Union Council of Ministers and established in November 2017 to conduct entrance examinations for higher educational institutions.

The National Institutes of Technology (NITs) are colleges of engineering and technology education in India. All NITs enjoy the status of the Institutes of National Importance and are autonomous universities that draft their own curricula. There are in all 31 NITs in India. The admission to undergraduate programs of all the NITs was done by the All India Engineering Entrance Examination popularly known as AIEEE. From the year 2013, AIEEE was replaced by JEE-Main (the Joint Entrance Examination Main).

Besides the above, there are many state government owned engineering colleges that provide technical education in India often affiliated to a University and having a limited or no autonomy about curriculum, examinations, degree granting, etc. The great demand for engineering and technical education has led to the mushrooming of the large number of private engineering colleges, many started by politicians or as money-making ventures. Admissions to these colleges are based on the Common Entrance Test (CET) results post their XII standard results.

Higher Education Opportunities in Engineering Studies

The post-graduation scenario in India is quite dismal as compared to advanced countries like the US and China. Considering the major global role, the Indian IT industry has been playing, it is amazing that less than 50 Ph Ds are produced in India in computer science and engineering per year. The R&D expenditure in India is obviously small. Another striking feature is the smaller share of the R&D

expenditure provided by industry in India, compared with other countries. The biggest failure of the Indian higher technical education system is that none of the IITs and other good institutions finds a place among the top 300 educational institutions in the world university rankings. Unless our premier institutions devote to the PG programmes the same zeal that they did in their early years to build a world-class UG curriculum and sufficient financial and employment attractions are instituted, they cannot produce good quality Master’s and Ph.D. degree holders. The number of students at the first-degree stage is larger in the case of India because the private institutions enrol students for the first degree, but have no facilities for PG courses. The small percentage of Indian engineering UGs pursuing PG studies is directly related to well-paying industry jobs available to students from good institutes and hence they lack motivation. The rapid expansion of engineering institutions has led to a steep deterioration in the quality of education due to acute shortage of numbers and qualification of the faculties, poor laboratory and library facilities and other infrastructure as well as limited or absence of autonomy. The shortage of faculty both in numbers and in quality is the most serious problem facing higher engineering education system and is the most difficult, but at the same time, most urgent challenge to be tackled. Even premier institutions such as the IITs have faculty shortages of

25% or more and the situation has persisted for a long time. The other institutions face a grimmer problem.

Thus, India’s higher technical education is good in small pockets, but far from world class. The bulk of it is of poor quality, producing graduates many of whom are unemployable. The main reason for this pathetic situation is rapid expansion of the education system without adequate number of qualified teachers, shortage or absence of infrastructure and lack of autonomy in all aspects of the technical education system. Other contributing factors are: poor linkage with industry, poor visibility in terms of publications, patents, new products and low or no international collaboration in teaching and research.

Overseas Opportunities in Engineering Studies

With a well laid out plan and some conviction, educational travel is an experience every engineering student can – and should – have access to. Studying abroad is crucial to engineering students as an essential educational experience. With more than a decade of experience in technical education, technical universities abroad have set a benchmark in the education sector. Technical universities abroad are offering subsidized education in a variety of engineering courses in the form of scholarships to Indian engineering students.

Here are some points that illustrate the main difference between Indian and overseas engineering:

• Curriculum in most of the Indian engineering colleges is mostly theoretical and less emphasis is given to practical knowledge whereas in foreign countries, practical learning is given more importance, which ignites creativity in the mind of youngsters.
• Competition is very common among all the streams in India but when we talk about engineering, this very competition touches a new milestone every year. This surreal race forces millions of students to take a drop or compromise their talent by taking admission in a low-grade engineering college. Abroad, there is no rat race of this kind.
• In India, IITs are the epitome of engineering studies and getting selected in IIT is not a child’s play. There are very few seats and if by extreme hard work and perseverance, a student manages to become ‘eligible’, he/she has to face the wrath of ‘reservation’. In foreign countries, there is no concept of reservation. students get selected on the basis of their aptitude and merit.
• In India, field visits and industrial internships are considered as a mere formality by both students and faculty. It’s just a check box in to do list of a normal engineering college. In foreign colleges and universities, industrial internships are specially designed to make sure that the students get optimum exposure of their relevant industry.
• To tap on the extreme competition and demand of engineering studies, many private bodies have opened small scale engineering colleges on a massive scale in India. There are so many small time engineering colleges in India that it is not a tough task to get admission for B.Tech or B.Sc., but the quality of education is so low that when the campus drive begins, most MNCs declare the students ‘unfit’ to work in a reputed firm. In foreign engineering institutions, they ensure that their students become global players and are suitable to work in any esteemed organisation.

There are many advantages for engineering students to study abroad:

• Variety of engineering courses available in many subject areas
• Quality education as compared to many countries
• World class research opportunities
• High on world rankings
• Better infrastructure facilities
• Much higher salaries and career opportunities

Career Opportunities after an engineering degree abroad

Successfully obtaining a degree in mechanical engineering is no easy task, but the versatile career field and job opportunities around the world certainly make it worth the hard work. Securing mechanical engineering jobs abroad can fulfill your travel dreams, expand your professional network, and jumpstart your career.

For example, countries with the highest demand for mechanical engineers include Germany and US, which are also one of the top paying countries in the world. While it is possible to earn an average salary of $84,190 with 5 years of experience in the industry in the US, salaries can go up to as high as $128,430 per annum