Now, engg grads can hone their teaching skills

HUBLI: There is hardly any institution that offers formal training to engineering graduates who dream of pursuing teaching profession. With Indo-US Collaboration for Engineering Education (IUCEE) bringing certification courses to India, getting formal training on engineering education practices will no longer remain a Herculean task.
IUCEE will introduce the certification course ING.PAED.IGIP in collaboration with BVB College of Engineering & Technology (BVB-CET) from next year.The programme is aimed at promoting quality assurance/improvement in educational practices and creating public awareness on quality of programmes for engineering pedagogues.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by Dr Michael Auer, IGIP representative from Austria, Dr Krishna Vedula, executive director of IUCEE and Dr Ashok Shettar, principal, BVB-CET, at an international conference held at BVB College recently.
Ashok Shettar, principal, BVB College, said there are institutes to train polytechnic teachers and others in India, but no institution trains engineering educators. "This six-month certification course will help bridge that gap. IGIP has established a prototype curriculum for engineering pedagogy which is already in use in many countries. In contrast to the American Board for Engineering & Technology (ABET) or European Federation of National Engineering Association (FEANI), IGIP is not an accreditation body for engineering curricula, but certifies a certain educational level for teachers, trainers or instructors," he said.
More than 1,300 professionals from 52 countries worldwide bear the title of 'IGIP International Engineering Educator' and curriculum of this certification course includes core modules, theory modules, practice modules and elective modules, Shettar said and added that they are yet to work on fee structure for the course.
Gopalkrishna Joshi, professor, computer science, BVB-CET, said the course supports institutional and programmatic accreditation by providing an opportunity for engineering educators to obtain pedagogical expertise that enables them to design modernized courses and curricula. This apart, it enables to employ sound pedagogic practices in the classroom and produce students who will possess the skills required by industrial constituents.