Co-Op programs should be adopted in Indian Engineering Colleges
Note: This article is focusing only on IT-related courses in Indian Engineering colleges.
In our study with Waterloo and other universities in Canada, we found one thing clear: whoever integrated Coops in their 3–4 year study program, they are letting their students to exposed to real-world problems and get trained for the industry.
On the other side, Indian Engineering colleges are focusing more on theories for the complete 4 years and not forcing the students to have complete Co-op programs.
Even though part-time internships will help students to get a little bit of a glance into the IT industry, it is not giving them a full view of it.
What can we do?
As in Waterloo like Universities, we can keep a mandatory Co-Op program every year (starting from the second year) like below:
Semester 1: In house
Semester 2: 3 months in house courses + 3 months Co-Ops
Semester 3: In house
Semester 4: 3 months in house courses + 3 months Co-Ops
Semester 5: In house
Semester 6: 3 months in house courses + 3 months Co-Ops
Semester 7&8: Final year projects including Co-Ops
by doing the above way, we can let the students experience what’s happening in the real IT world. It will also give employers some edge on hiring the right candidates from their previous Co-op candidates pool.
Instead of promoting rote-learning and CGPA, Engineering colleges can focus on making industrial-standard students so employers can get much productivity with less training.
Willing to try?
Are you an autonomous Engineering college in India and looking forward to applying this approach to your college? We can help you to adopt our method in a smooth way so your IT students can real exposure to real-time scenarios.
What do we do?
At TactLabs, we do research on various learning systems including University education systems and employability among students. We are happy to share our insights on what we have gathered over the years.
