My problem and concern is about the teaching of various subjects in professional engineering colleges.

Teaching profession always goes in parallel with industry.

But the industry field has been changing drastically with the invention of new materials and new concepts. Reduction in job opportunities are great. Consider this as a problem for new generations for their employment.

Regards

Architect and Professor

Thank you for your letter.

From my experience running an IT training company I know that this is the case in many areas of education nowadays.

I understand that the curriculum is set for several years, and has to be prepared and agreed for some time prior to that, so staff are ready to teach it. So, by definition, academic education is always going to be several years out of date. This is fine if you are studying a subject for an academic pursuit of knowledge, such as classics, languages, the arts. And the subject is not developing at an alarming rate

However, it is a problem if you are studying a rapidly evolving subject such as engineering, as you point out. This will be true in many areas of technological expertise, in our rapidly evolving world.

Therefore, people may begin to opt for vendor specific qualifications, such as Microsoft certification in the case of IT. They update their teaching materials in line with their operating system rollouts.

In this case the academic world will come under increasing pressure to offer valid contemporary teaching that introduces new materials and concepts to students. Otherwise industry and commerce will find their own solutions, and the colleges will become irrelevant and suffer falling student numbers, and consequently falling revenues and loss of jobs .

If I were in your position I would be encouraging some latitude in the curriculum that would allow for new concepts and developments to be introduced. This would obviously vary by discipline, but I’m sure it is not beyond the wit of mankind to come up with a solution!

It is an interesting point you raise, thanks for contacting me.