Steve Rand: expanding technical education in India

Prof. Stephen Rand recently visited India to learn about the country’s ongoing expansion in higher education as an Optical Society of America (OSA) Fellow Lecturer. He focused on “how India is enhancing its role as a leader in optical engineering and physics discovery in the 21st century,” in an article written for the June issue of Optics and Photonics News.   [Read the article]

“India’s progress toward becoming a global economic power-player has generated an unprecedented need for a larger, highly trained workforce of engineers, scientists and technicians,” said Prof. Rand. “In response to this need, the country is ushering in a number of new higher-education initiatives—including additions to the established India Institutes of Technology (IIT) system, private universities and training centers—as well as implementing unique approaches to support these efforts.”

His visit took him to many major cities and universities, including the Kolkata-Kharagpur-Bhubaneswar triangle in the east and the Delhi-Jaipur-Agra triangle in the west. Both of these regions have seen the opening of new government-funded universities as recently as 2015. After this year, the number of IITs in operation will rise to 23.