So finally! The government of Tamilnadu, India has acknowledged (indirectly) that Engineering colleges in the state are absolutely waste. This acknowledgement comes after 20 years and many lakhs of students life’s being spoiled by engineering colleges.

I am an I.T consultant based in Chennai, capital of Tamilnadu, I studied my engineering here in Tamilnadu and I came out of college almost skill less. After my graduation I built my programming skills and now I make my living managing many coding projects.

Now I interview many people across India for various companies and for my project, but after 10 years since I finished engineering college I find standards getting more worst. People who have finished Electrical Engineering don’t know what an relay is, people who finish Electronics Engineering don’t know ehow an diode works, Communication Engineers don’t know why we now go in for digital transmission of data rather than pure analog. Computer science engineer can’t explain what BNF or a tuple is or how a piece of code is more efficient than other. Sometimes I feel like burst out laughing, but control i with great difficulty.

College has simply become a social institution. You meet people digitally on facebook or Diaspora or Twitter, and you meet them Away from keyboard (AFK) in college. Thats it. Students and staff come to college just for social aspect. Or mostly because the college management forces them to attend against their will.

Almost no Engineering or Technical college in Tamilnadu has got a useful patent, put out papers on scientific discoveries, even the professors and doctorate holders get their degrees in imperfect way. Students for their final year projects go to some companies which sell them ready made project kits, buy them and submit it to the college and get their professors approval. Professors have tieup with companies which sells these kits. Even my project 10 years ago was completed in the same fashion.

Teaching is really bad. Almost no staff knows what they teach, they just read out from books and copy math problems onto the board. Library in many colleges are locked or don’t lend books. Some colleges don’t let one to take books off from library that are not related to their subjects. Many colleges don’t have a proper computer, electronics, chemistry or any other lab. Even if they do, mostly its for display to parents (to convince to put their kids in) and goverment officials who come in for inspection.

Students are made to sit for lectures for eight hours a day. Students simply can’t opt in and opt out of these classes thought mostly by idiots. Boys and girls in many colleges are forbidden to speak to each other and students are forbidden to roam campus except for few allotted hours! For example to know about my college panimalar, visit this link https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:A.K.Karthikeyan/Panimalar_Engineering_College&oldid=238959425

Now looks like the government has taken note of all these and has told students to follow coursewares created by MIT, edX, IIT and other institutions. There is no other way… But if the colleges lock in students and don’t grant them freedom, like free wifi and ability to use tablets and computers on campus this initiative will fail. I am confident that this will fail 100% unless student freedom is restored.