Engineering study abroad

India hopes to become a permanent member of the Washington Accord, the body that sets international standards in engineering education, within the next three years.India became a provisional member of the group in 2007. Permanent membership would help engineering graduates from India find jobs and pursue further studies in the 14 member nations, including the US and Britain.The National Board of Accreditation (NBA), an autonomous body under the human resource development ministry, has restructured its accreditation norms for engineering courses to conform to global standards.

The Washington Accord secretariat has sent two mentors to India to review the new accreditation policy and its implementation. The duo R.M. Ullikrishnan and Lock Kai Sant today examined the new accreditation norms.The two mentors will overview the accreditation norms. They will suggest improvements, if required. They will submit a report on our accreditation procedure to the Washington Accord secretariat,a source said.The NBA, which coordinates with the Washington Accord, will apply for full-fledged membership next year.The Washington Accord secretariat will then send three other reviewers who will scrutinise the accreditation norms once again and submit a report.

The members of the group will meet in 2013 to decide on granting permanent membership to India.Rajiv Kumar, a professor of IIT Kharagpur, who drafted the accreditation guidelines, said: We are hopeful that India will be given permanent membership in 2013. The accreditation procedure has been brought on a par with the international norms.Earlier, the NBA was mainly concentrating on the availability of land, infrastructure facilities and equipment. Now the focus of accreditation is quality of faculty and students and research output,he said.He said the new guidelines were being implemented on a trial basis at selected colleges and would also be implemented across the country.

At present, there are about 3,600 engineering colleges in India with an intake of about 2 lakh students every year.The Washington Accord, signed in 1989, recognises substantial equivalence in the accreditation of qualifications in professional engineering, normally of four years’ duration.
Signing the accord will enable engineering graduates from India to work or study in any of the signatory countries.Permanent membership in the Washington Accord will give added value to the engineering programmes offered in India. Students from smaller colleges, who were finding difficult to go abroad for jobs or studies, will be able to get opportunities in any of the member countries,Kumar said.The group has Australia,Austria,Canada, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Sweden,Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, the UK and the US as its members.