In the context of determined steps taken by Government of India and Ministry of Human Resource Development and policy pronouncements by Hon’ble Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Cabinet Minister Kapil Sibal, in unequivocal terms, for the improvement of the quality of higher education, the scathing attack on the quality of projects done by the students of Professional Courses like B.Tech, B.Pharm, deserves a closer examination of the problem as some pernicious practices have crept into the system abusing the very purpose of having project, mini or major, as part of the course curriculum. The mini and major projects and seminar for B.Tech students carry 300 marks.
This project work has been introduced as part of the curriculum with laudable objectives to provide students the following:
• Industry exposure
• Hands on Experience
• Chance to understand industry procedures and practices
• An opportunity to transform theoretical concept into practice
• Chance of apprenticeship by working in the industry for a period of 3 or 4 months under the supervision of experienced industrial professional as guide
• Focus on a topic, collecting relevant material information from different sources, including internet
• Opportunity to classify and codify the information thus collected into different chapters
• Situation to stir their mind to visualise project management with its hypothesis and conclusions
• To understand and use research methodology and tools
• To fit into a team of 3 or 5 members etc.
• An opportunity to unleash their energies, brilliance and technical know how
• A test for the ability relating to a conceptual knowledge to solve a practical problem confronting a production process or human kind
• To think out of box and focus on lateral thinking
• To visualise a practical solution with reduced costs
• An opportunity for imaginative tackling of group specific problems of disadvantaged sections in the society
• An opportunity to bring technology closer to common man
• To stir the students mind to think of people and problems around him thus enhancing his social consciousness
These projects are to be considered as mini research thesis forming a fore ground to be extended further as M.Tech project or Ph.d thesis later. That should be the potentiality of any project done by the students of professional courses.
If the project is taken up in true spirit, the student/s concerned feel thrilled and have a sense of satisfaction and confidence that they have done something creative, innovative and original. He also feels that it is the product of his hard/ smart work and it is the epitome of his language skills especially writing skills. In fact this project is the basis of discussion in viva of placements. It also decides the specialisation in their higher studies like M.Tech/ MS / M Pharm. The specific platform/ language/ operating system used by the students in their projects is an important parameter in making placement selections by many of the software companies.
There is a noticeable deterioration in the quality of the projects. The students are not in a position to answer a few questions asked by the examiner during viva, while evaluating the projects. All this clearly shows that the students are not taking up the project work with all seriousness it deserves. Some of them are resorting to cut and paste from internet and other sources to complete their project. They are also purchasing readymade projects and incorporating their name. The readymade project cost varies from Rs. 3000 to Rs. 8000 and is being shared by team members consisting of 3 to 5 students .The role of the faculty of the college is minimised in some colleges. In fact there shall be a faculty guide under whose supervision and monitoring the students are supposed to complete their work. The internal faculty guide and HOD has to certify to the effect that the project has been done under his/her supervision and it is partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the degree. The student also declares that it is his original work and he did not try to duplicate from any other report. The marks awarded to these projects are turning the tables making an average student secure First Class / and First Class student getting a distinction.
Many college authorities are not allowing the students to select a project topic instead project titles are imposed on them. All these evil practices crept into the system because of many factors. The Managements are unnecessarily interfering in this process. The academic autonomy to be given to the respective faculty is completely taken away. It should be an affair between the teachers and the students. To get inflated pass percentage the managements are poking their nose and dictating terms. Some teachers opine whether the project is live or dummy, if it is taken up with maximum efforts the student is liable to get more knowledge on the topic. The internal faculty project guides have not been given any remission in their weekly workload hence they are not in a position to show interest in the project reports. Most of the engineering colleges are commercial in their outlook and approach. Some management’s are wishing to please irregular students and allow students to submit readymade projects.
To do a live project, minimum of six months is required but only 15 or 20 weeks are given for the projects. Hence the time span allotted is also a deterrent factor. The deterioration is more visible in the case of students belonging to IT branches like CSE, IT, ECE when compared to project work done by the students of core branches like Civil, Mechanical, Electrical etc. The wholesale condemnation of projects done by the students of all branches is not justified. The projects relating to core branches are being done with collaboration of the industry for three or four months and comply with all industrial procedures and practices, guided and supervised by experienced industry project guide. This is still possible as the number of final year students of these branches constitutes only 25 to 30 percent of total number of engineering students.
Industries of core branches are offering projects to students in their sectors but some of them hailing from rural / district colleges, are not availing the offer and resorting to malpractices like cut and paste or purchase of readymade projects. These students are giving flimsy excuses that they cannot economically afford to stay in the city for a period of three to four months. In the case of IT branches as there are large number of students constituting 70 or 75 percent of total engineering students, it is humanly impossible to expect all these students to do their projects in the industry. The IT companies are not coming forward to offer projects as large groups of students present in the company in the name of doing project, is a big source of disturbance. Some IT companies are accommodating M.Tech students for their project work as their number is less and their services are being used for software product development of their clients and they are being paid considerable monthly package.
While allotting land and other perks to the software companies, the Government insists on number of jobs the company can create, but not the number of students who can be accommodated for the project work. This costly omission on the part of the government is making these private sector units to take advantage of offering live projects. Hence the students of these branches are resorting to many foul methods to do projects.
The main problem is with B.Tech IT branch students and B.Pharm students. Hundreds of private agencies with different names cropped up to help the students in doing their mini/ major projects charging huge money. The evaluation process of the projects prescribed by the university is in no way able to check the evil practices. The external examiner coming from other colleges can easily make out whether the project is really done by the student or not by putting some questions after going through the presentation and the seminar by the student concerned. It is said that these external examiners are adopting conniving attitude as the students of their colleges are also adopting the same evil practices. Some college authorities are paying lump sum amount to the external examiners to make them accept all project reports, irrespective of their origin and award marks liberally. These unjustified inflated marks create in the student lot of self pride which proves disastrous in the placement process.
Thus the whole spectrum of project report is being corrupted and polluted, inviting the immediate attention of the authorities concerned to take remedial measures. The interference of college managements should be completely curbed and it should be left to the domain faculty concerned. The faculty nominated as project guides should be given actual remission in the weekly work load, so that they can concentrate on the projects allotted to them. Instead of reducing whole project work to symbolic and ceremonial exercise, with the collaborations of organisations like TRAI, GHMC, Election Commission, Civil Supplies department, Multi purpose unique number agency and many Government and private agencies etc., many application areas can be identified for doing projects. Best project awards may be given in the college, branch wise and section wise after identifying the original projects by expert evaluation committee specially constituted by college authorities.
The University concerned shall appoint expert scrutiny committees to make random check of the evaluation done by the external examiners. Whenever they find a great discrepancy such examiners should be blacklisted, huge penalty should be imposed on them and the whole thing should be well publicised so that the examiners would be careful and would not succumb to financial gains. The concerned students should be made to fail and rewrite semester examination and submit a new project.
Third year students in their first semester must have a Think Time Capsule once in a month wherein they are completely left free with no class/ lab work. During that complete free time, they exercise their brain and conduct brain storming sessions come out with some ideas and identify the list of project titles/ themes. Each student has to come out with at least five or six project titles. Later, he has to make a detailed power point presentation before a panel of teacher guides and industry experts. After good deal of interaction, one project title must be identified even before the end of the third year so that the student starts working on the project during ensuing summer. And from day one of the fourth year he/ she can start the project work in right earnest. He will have a feeling that he suggested the topic and it is his brain child, own and original idea. Working with such emotional feeling of liking and belongingness will definitely result into a worthwhile project.
(The author is Dean, SLC Institute of Engineering & Technology)