Page 8 - A comprehensive policy

A Comprehensive Training Policy for Technical Teachers

Management, Pharmacy, Architecture etc. Even though the report refers substantially to
the domain of engineering,but similar conclusions can be drawn for other domains and
appropriate modifications and alterations can be worked out accordingly.

1.1 THE RATIONALE AND NEED FOR THE TRAINING POLICY

The Committee highly appreciated the initiative of the AICTE towards framing and
implementing a Comprehensive Training Policy for Technical Teachers. It strongly
concurs that there is an urgent need for doing this to bring tangible improvement
in the quality of technical education in the country.

The trend in most of the technical institutions in the country, including even in the
pace-setting institutions such as the IITs, NITs, IIITs etc., fresh graduates like M.Sc.,
M.Tech, MBA or Ph.D are recruited as teachers without undergoing any training and
are left to fend for themselves in working out in their profession with an expectation
that they will become competent teachers by trial and error, totally un-mentored.

It may be appreciated that to be a proficient teacher in any field, one should
have a sound knowledge and associated skills of the subject and its application
with the prevailing practice scenario in real life and then one should have the
requisite teaching skills needed to scientifically plan for instructional delivery and
communicate the knowledge and skills with the students in an effective manner.
This has to be done in a manner so that they are motivated and fascinated to acquire
the knowledge and associated skills and visualize its application for helping them to
become competent professionals, capable of contributing effectively towards the
welfare of the society and also their career development.

A faculty member who completes his/ her studies in a timely manner, and join
the academic career normally enjoys 30-35 years of teetotal working period. The
first deliverable viz ‘outputs’ is quantifiable in a short duration from the start of
the academic career. The second deliverable viz. ‘outcomes’ comes in a medium
duration say 10-15 years of working and the third ‘impacts’ is visualized in a long
duration say beyond 20-25 years. A faculty member is required to provide quality
outputs in the short run so that they lead to meaningful outcomes for the disciplines
in the medium duration which in turn cause a valuable impact for the nation in the
long duration. Thus, a faculty member is required to plan the efforts of effective
teacher learning and implementation to make the academic career meaningful.

Truly speaking, knowledge of practice,i.e. its application helps to be a subject
expert and, therefore, competent enough for teaching. Such situations are ensured
in several other professions such as the medical profession, the legal profession,
etc. where the teachers are simultaneously being the practitioners as well. In the
domain of technical education, this condition is only very scantily catered to or is
totally missing. Therefore, some ways and means need to be evolved to provide
such exposure to technical teachers. Guiding them to carry out meaningful R&D,
sponsored projects, consultancy etc. provides such an avenue to some extent for
which proper training and exposure is required. Hence, it is essential to have such
skills and leadership enhancement programs for young professionals entering the

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