Implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) in Engineering Education

Engineering Colleges & polytechnics have quantitatively increased considerably during the last 2 decades & will continue to increase in future as well, may be at lower pace. This sudden expansion has given our country the status of world’s third largest technical manpower reserve. But at the same time, the quantitative expansion has put lot of pressure on standard of technical education. To rectify this situation “TQM” will certainly help us in raising & maintaining the standard.
We have grown quantitatively. What next?
Engineering colleges are supposed to be the centers of technical education. They have been established to train the young minds & supply appropriate manpower to variety of industries, Govt. organizations, and several multinational cooperation’s in the present scenario of Liberalization, Privatization, and Globalization. The students so trained in Engineering Colleges must receive the quality education so that they meet the basic expectations of the employers. The five top skills identified by the employers and required of the educated workforce are:
Time management
Ability to work under pressure
Accuracy & attention to details
Oral communication skills and
Managing different tasks at the same time.
Thus, the responsibility of any Engineering College is to look at the process of Engineering education with due seriousness so that the pass outs have imbibed necessary skills & competencies which will make them globally acceptable.
Quantitative expansion motivated by global phenomena of Liberalization, privatization and Globalization (LPG) has become a cause of concern for quality of engineering graduates.
This critical issue of quality of engineering graduates needs to be addressed on priority basis and the best thing done by the central Govt. is the establishment of AICTE, which plays the regulatory role of monitoring engineering education through out the country.
In this paper, attempt has been made to discuss the main parameters, which need to be taken care of, if the quality of engineering graduates is of any concern.