Horror Vacui: Importance of Core Branches of Engineering!

On this day of Guru Poornima, I thought of penning down this important article as how India may become hollow in the core in due course and ultimately may collapse if not acted now. There is a trend establishing that the Z and beyond generations of students do not want to work in shop floor or in the rough terrains or take up the blue collared job. In some cases it is the wards that are keener on white collared jobs whereas in some other cases, they are pushed to white collared jobs by their parents, even if the wards are not willing. A big difference in initial Pay package is another reason although the pay package gets reversed later. Now a trend is setting in that there is no need for education and it is disturbing to see that some (although a few) who have put in substantial time in achieving the engineering core branch degree are about to quit half way to take up employment or to go to business courses. If the industrial activities stop, the wheel of progress stops and everything will come to a standstill. To do business, something has to be produced. So, we have to be creators to “CREATE” something to sell. The Institution Innovation Council of Ministry of Education is working in those directions. A trend is now setting in by luring the young students to online marketing and other type of low end computer jobs. Imagine a student so keen on a core branch of engineering, if lured, and gradually the highly interested and motivated won’t take up the core branches, what will happen to the country?. In due course there will be hollowness without domain knowledge and everything will collapse. It is difficult to emphasize on Aatmanirbhar Bharat or the New Education Policy if this is going to be the trend! If the Aatmanirbhar Bharat has to happen the core branches of engineering must be retained with utmost rigour and vigour. But that is not happening. A decline in interest is happening and the blame goes to all without exception – government, industry, professional bodies etc. Hence there has to be a policy at the national level without stereotyping the western or developed country models. Normally in India, we have a practice of copying the standards from the developed nations and rechristening as our own with renaming, for ex vehicular standards EURO as Bharat Stage. This is perfectly acceptable in some cases; however, there also we do modifications when we apply to Indian conditions as those nations are different and our country is different. We boasted of having substantial young manpower and export them, but those nations all automated – so where do we send our manpower? Moreover, the ages from birth: 10,30,50,70 years... and then extinction happen so fast. When looks back, one wonders how quickly the days have passed. Once a high level official from a reputed government institute was telling me that he realized at the retirement what he never had realized how fast Monday to Friday used to happen for 35 years of his professional life and one day he got superannuated to his total disbelief and non-acceptance. What I meant to say here is that 30 to 60 years is so fast – young become old and later burden as per those thoughts. If we don’t act now to retain and improve the core branches of engineering, we will lose the domain knowledge and be always dependent on technology know-how from the developed nations and we cannot do Aatmanirbhar. All these findings are based on my grassroots level education in government institutions including the premier institutes in India and  abroad, research, development and innovation activities in academics and industry  and having worked in the field of energy, environment, heavy engineering industries and fully going through the cycle of industry-academia interaction. In the present day, most of the developments happen through a narrow minded passion for technology and it totally violates the broad based thinking. Computers alone can’t solve the problems of the humankind. We must “pay” the humans instead of “paying” the machines. One must take into account the factor that the machines cannot work at low cost beyond a certain point whereas humans can. A total reboot is required.

Today I came across a student who according to his parents, had excellent inclination for a core branch in engineering who of late has changed his mind particularly after the Corona online classes and has changed his mind to quit engineering and would like to do some tech based telemarketing type of jobs. If this is the future, who will take care of the requirements of the core branches of engineering? I think a total mindset change is required. Online classes are only for the working professionals and not for those whose brain is still maturing that is predominantly up to the age of 21-22. Of course, in CORONA like situation there is no other choice. We need at this juncture, statesman generalists/specialists who can guide and not the selfish specialists.

There is a belief that automation will solve every problem of the industry and high efficiency is required in all areas. If all produce at very high efficiency, then there will be no takers of the products or services, recession or depression will set in and all have to close. High efficiency is required in those areas which is precious and limited in resource and which cause global warming. There is some viewpoint that government must restrict the industries in their growth as well as growth of pay pockets of high level executives as once proposed by late President Sri Pranab Mukherjee. Only a limited automation with compulsory involvement of human in most of the industrial activities is the only way forward, particularly for a country like India. Most of the affordable humans (although official records may show otherwise, through BPL cards) have reached a level of comfort and nothing more is left to do further human comfort. It looks like the expectation is that we need to fit several gadgets and fly if required – I think it is just madness and leading to destruction of the society. One more thing commonly seen these days is that leave the younger generation to whatever they want to do ... hence they spend a lot of time on mobile phones, internet, forwards, and all virtual things without any reality. There is a certain type of people at all levels to encourage this without understanding the depth of it. The younger generation is supposed to do better than their previous generation; there is nothing special in it. Then why create all divisions and discrimination with one more “young and old” added to it? It is the time to rededicate ourselves to the preservation of the society and the earth environment through all the improved technologies. Or we all perish although I don’t want but I am pulled due to the burden of others similar to the case of CORONA/COVID-19.

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