Quanser Salutes “Overall Best Industry-Linked Engineering Institutes” in India

PSG College of Technology (PSG), Coimbatore, and the College of Engineering, Pune, (CoEP) were recently ranked first and second in a joint survey of “best overall industry-linked engineering institutes” in India.

The survey was conducted by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Its goal was to highlight the best practices of industry and engineering university partnerships engaged in by AICTE-approved engineering institutes. A total of 156 engineering institutes took part in this voluntary survey.

Linking engineering schools with industry partners is widely seen as an effective strategy for bridging the gap between academia and industry and ensuring that newly-graduated engineers are well-trained and ready to enter the industry seamlessly.

Quanser supports this strategy in India and around the world. Our role is to develop hands-on experiments for engineering students that engage and motivate them. We offer additional support by providing ABET-aligned courseware professors can use to complement their teaching if they so choose.

Sunny Ray, Quanser Channel Manager for South Asia, speaks with guests at the 2011 opening of  a Quanser Center of Excellence at the College of Engineering, Pune, India.

For some time now, Quanser has had a presence at these high-ranking schools and Quanser workstations and courseware are part of their control labs.  In 2011 CoEP opened a Quanser Center of Excellence, and PSG is qualified as a Quanser Center of Core Competence. Furthermore, professors at both schools are currently writing papers and preparing to publish books based on teaching and research using Quanser solutions.  Clearly their commitment to bridging the gap between theory and practice in engineering education is reflected in the way they are partnering with us. I am not at all surprised they were the recipients of this prestigious award, and on behalf of Quanser, I congratulate them.

To sum up, companies in India are seriously challenged when it comes to finding enough industry-ready engineers directly out of university. Indeed, according to a study conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute on the emerging global labour market, only 25 percent of the engineers coming out of institutions in this country are immediately employable. The AICTE survey helps to highlight which schools are doing the best job in bridging the gap between academia and industry. I feel that the joint survey is very important and I look forward to working more closely with PSG, CoEP and other engineering institutes to meet this challenge.

-        Sunny Ray

Quanser Channel Manager, South Asia