Polytechnic Education – An Overview

1.1       Polytechnic Education – An Overview

Polytechnic education in our country constitutes an important segment of Technical Education and contributes significantly to the   economic development.  Aimed at creating a vast amount of technical manpower, the polytechnics  have  played  a  pivitol  role  in  providing  skilled  manpower  at various levels for organized, unorganized and Service Sectors. Generally, the polytechnics in the country have been offering three year diploma courses in conventional disciplines such as Civil, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. However, during the last two decades many polytechnics have started offering courses in emerging disciplines such as Electronics, Computer Science, Medical Lab technology, Hospital Engineering, Architectural Assistantship etc. In   addition,   many   institutions   are   also   offering   specialized   diploma programmes in areas such as Leather Technology, Sugar Technology, and Printing Technology etc.  Many diploma programmes are also being offered suited to women such as in Garment Technology, Beauty Culture and Textile Design etc. Polytechnics are meant to provide skills after class X and the duration of diploma programmes is 3 years. Polytechnics are also offering post diploma and advanced diploma programmes of 1-2 year’s duration in different specializations.

1.2       Importance of Polytechnic Education

The Mission’s basic objective is to create a trained Skilled Manpower of atleast 500 million persons by 2020. To translate the mission objective into action, several new initiatives are to be taken by various key Ministries.  New Schemes orienting to Skill Development are to be launched.  The existing capacity for training manpower is to be expanded many fold.  This will include opening of new Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and Polytechnics., new Vocational Schools and Skill Development Centers.  Through this, it is to ensure that annually over 100 lakh students get vocational training, which is a four-fold increase from today’s level.  Towards this, the active help of the private sector is also planned in a big way so that they do not only assist in the training but also lend a hand in providing employment opportunities”.

Technical  Education  is  instrumental  in  making  a  remarkable contribution  to  economic  growth  of  the  Developing  Countries  by  way  of suitable manpower production according to the needs of the Industry, Society and  the  Global  World  as  a  whole.     To  produce  contemporary  skilled manpower & technocrats suited to the present era of science and technology is the need of the hour.  Polytechnic education has therefore responded to the challenges  of  industrialization  for  self-reliance,  as  well  as  meeting international demands.

The aim of the polytechnic education is to create a pool of skill based manpower to support shop floor and field operations as a middle level link between   technicians   and   engineers.   The   pass-outs   of   Diploma   level Institutions in Engineering & Technology play an important role in managing shop-floor operations. It is further an established fact that small & medium Industry prefer to employ Diploma Holders because of their special skills in interpreting enigineering, drawings, estimating, costing,  billing, supervision, measurement, testing, repair & maintenance etc.

1.3      Slow and Uneven Growth of Polytechnic Education

During the last decade, our country has witnessed a tremendous increase in the number of Engineering Colleges providing technical manpower at Degree level. However, the growth of technical institutions at diploma level has not been proportionate to the degree in Engineering. Whereas, the expansion of Degree level institutions has been several fold, the Diploma institutions expansion has suffered a setback. At present, the student intake in degree level courses is around 8 lakh per annum as against 5 lakh in diploma level.    The  present  ratio  of  degree  to  diploma  holders  is  around  1.6:1, whereas ideally it should be 1:3. This is in view  of more private initiatives for starting colleges as self financing institutions coming up in the degree level institutions compared to the diploma level institutions.

2.0      SETTING UP NEW POLYTECHNICS

In order to stimulate the growth of Polytechnics in the country and considering the follow up required in the present condition of not adequate initiatives coming from the State Government and the private bodies, the Central Government has decided to support the State Government for starting Polytechnics. Under this Scheme, through a one time financial assistance is to be provided to the State Governments for meeting the capital cost in establishment of new polytechnics in the districts which do not have any government / government aided polytechnic and in other educationally backward and underserved districts where it may not be easy to establish new polytechnics under Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode or under private initiative.

 

Under this, 300 such polytechnics are to be set up by the State Governments/ Union Territories with assistance from Government of India limited  to  Rs.12.3  crore  per  polytechnic  to  meet  the  capital  costs  of establishing a polytechnic.

Curtsey:MHRD