Excellence Through Autonomy: Transformation of College of Engineering Pune Into An IIT-like Institution

Excellence through Authonomy
FOREWORD
INDIA MUST THINK BIG IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION
DR F C KOHLI
Chairman, Board of Governors, CoEP
There are at least 50-60 engineering colleges in the country today where the quality of student
intake is comparable to that at the IITs. If these colleges could be given autonomy quickly and
be assisted with mentorship and support for improving the quality of their education delivery
and research, then we could produce 35,000 to 40,000 world-class engineers. Some of these,
say 6000 to 7000, can go on to do their PhDs, engaging in research towards products, patents
and services to deal with the engineering challenges facing the country. (Dr Kohli, 2002)
I say this again; this country has no business being poor.
ii
Excellence through Autonomy
No country that neglects education as much as India has, can expect to be internationally competitive. I
have always believed that the distribution of talent is the same all over the world. Since Indias population
is three times that of the United States we are likely to have three times as many bright people. Yet we
are producing very few PhDs and research workers, a vital input into advanced research, technology
development, and innovation. This is especially true in the engineering fields. For example, India
produced 125 doctorates in computer engineering in 2013, as against 2,000 PhDs in the same field in
America.
It is possible to address this imbalance with a well calibrated approach. Most of the universities and their
affiliated colleges are run by state governments. These universities do not revise and update science,
math and physics curriculum as often as is needed to maintain quality. Universities have become
essentially examination bodies. Good students dont need to put in extensive effort to pass these exams
and for the others there are coaching classes.
There are at least fifty engineering colleges in the country where the intake of students comprises those
who have scored above 85% at the 10+2 level, without any coaching. These students are bright by any
standard. If the quality of education at these colleges can be upgraded to the level of the IITs or American
universities it is possible to increase the pool of top-class undergraduate engineers to approximately 50 60,000 (over and above what is being produced by the IITs). This large pool of engineers will be sufficient,
even after accounting for migration and transfers, to supply the requisite numbers of Masters and PhD
students who can undertake research, innovation and entrepreneurship towards wealth creation, and
towards addressing the many challenging engineering tasks facing the country today. We must produce
at least 6000 engineering PhDs each year at the earliest.
Upgrading the quality of education at 50-60 colleges will require a successful example that can be used
as a template for replication. I am happy that we have been able to create one such template in the
College of Engineering Pune (CoEP), one of the oldest engineering colleges in the country, which was
granted autonomy in 2004 and has since registered a sharp increase in the quality of education delivery
within a span of just 6-7 years. I take this opportunity to thank members of the Government of
Maharashtra, Mr Dilip Walse-Patil, the late Mrs Kumud Bansal, Mrs Chandra Iyengar and many others for
reposing their faith in the concept of autonomy and for unconditionally backing the independent Board
of Governors of CoEP under my leadership.
I am very grateful to the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) Mumbai, its chairman Shri Sudheendra
Kulkarni, and the authors of this report, Dr Leena Chandran-Wadia and Aparna Sivakumar, for helping to
document the transformation of this historic college so that it may become a source of inspiration and
ideas for use by many other colleges in the country.
I would like to thank all the eminent members of the Board of Governors who have contributed their time
and expertise with deep commitment during the past decade. I would like to especially acknowledge the
work of B.S. Sonde in revamping curriculum and taking the academics at the College to new heights.
Pratap Pawar volunteered to take charge of finance and purchase and provided invaluable assistance,
not just in bringing fiscal discipline to the College but also in squeezing out the maximum value from every
rupee that was spent. Most importantly, he has ensured that many faculty members and staff have learnt
from the experience of working alongside him. The critical task of hiring new faculty could not have been
handled without the assistance of G.B. Pant who took on this onerous responsibility and executed it so
well. Atul Kirloskar took charge of the building and works committee and the results are visible in the
beautifully renovated heritage main building and the extensive new infrastructure on campus. Anil
Sahasrabudhe, has been a dynamic Director who has led from the front and worked with all his
colleagues, faculty as well as non-teaching staff, to bring positive change to every aspect of the
functioning of CoEP. It has been a pleasure working with him.
Sceptics say that the transformation at College of Engineering Pune will not be easy to replicate because
it involved a fortuitous combination of leadership by me and Dr Sahasrabudhe. I disagree strongly with
this view. I believe that there are many eminent industrialists who have a deep interest in quality
education, who would willingly commit their time to guide a newly autonomous college into adopting
good governance practices. It is only a matter of looking for them. The same is true for academics with
innate leadership skills, who can be made Directors at these colleges. A good Director is a critical input
into the change process. The pace of change at CoEP began to get underway and accelerate only when
Dr Sahasrabudhe came on board, in 2006. I am convinced that there are several others like him who can
script a similar success story, provided they are properly empowered.
The outcome of the recently concluded parliamentary elections in India has ushered in a strong wave of
hope and expectation in the country. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has changed the mood of the
nation from pessimism to optimism by promising better governance. Radical reforms in many areas of
governance are in the offing. I heartily welcome this change and extend my best wishes for the success
of the Prime Ministers agenda for Indias rapid development. I also send my greetings and best wishes
to Smt. Smriti Irani, the new Minister of Human Resource Development. I take this opportunity to remind
them both that nowhere else are reforms more urgently needed than in the area of education, especially
higher education.
One of the first major announcements of the new government has been regarding the setting up IITs and
IIMs in every state. Although new institutions are needed, I believe that there must be simultaneous
effort put into improving some of the existing institutions. A relatively much larger number of students
stand to gain by this. By not taking adequate care of the bulk of our students, our education system is
turning brilliant students into mediocre citizens.
The proposal to upgrade existing colleges will require a one-time financial investment from the respective
state governments, to the tune of say Rs 100 crore over five years, to each chosen college. Once these
colleges are providing better infrastructure and better education they can be allowed to levy higher
tuition fees. Well educated engineers will definitely find well-paying jobs so it is only fair that they pay for
their education. Towards this I have also worked with Dr Y.V. Reddy and many others to get an innovative
student-loan scheme Burden on the Beneficiaries approved by RBI and the Indian Banks Association, so
that students can get loans on very easy terms (simple interest) to become independent of their parents.
CoEP has in the past few years turned its attention towards excellence in research and innovation and it
must now aim at becoming an MIT-like institution. It can dream big today because it was assisted
iii
iv
extensively with all aspects of academics by IIT Bombay during the early days. Similar academic inputs
will be required at all the chosen colleges and we must plan for it. CoEP has, in fact, already become a
mentor to Punjab Institute of Engineering & Technology in Chandigarh, and Cummins College of
Engineering for Women in Pune. I believe that it would be wise to create a separate organisation that can
take charge of this activity of assisting these chosen colleges with all the necessary knowhow and by
connecting them to eminent academics who can assist them.
I congratulate Leena and Aparna for bringing out an excellent report. I have enjoyed interacting with
these enthusiastic and highly committed researcher-activists and learnt from their report. I hope you will
too. I believe that the report will certainly achieve the goal envisaged for it, namely, of becoming the
catalyst for a big push towards quality engineering education in India.
Mumbai - November 2014
PREFACE
GOVERNANCE OF EDUCATION
MUST BE LEFT TO VISIONARY EDUCATIONISTS
Every time I meet Dr F.C. Kohli, I am reminded of what Henry
David Thoreau wrote about old age: NONE ARE SO OLD AS
THOSE WHO HAVE OUTLIVED ENTHUSIASM.
Dr Kohli, now in his 91st year, exudes both enthusiasm and
ideas. But he is not only a man of ideas. He is also a man of
action.
SUDHEENDRA KULKARNI
Chairman, ORF Mumbai
The young people of India, aspiring
and impatient, want to see big-scale
change in the shortest possible time
frame. They are unwilling to accept
delays. They will not tolerate small
fulfilment
of
big
promises.
Therefore, it is the responsibility of
Ten years ago, at an age when most people would be only

reminiscing about what they did in the past, Dr Kohli began
thinking about what he would do in the future. Propelled by
his lifelong passion for quality education for all, he set out on
a new adventure. He intensified his advocacy for autonomy
to engineering colleges in India. He was convinced, firstly,
that technological manpower of high quality is the key to
Indias rapid development. His experience as the founder of
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), and his earlier stint in the
power sector, had made him acutely aware of the need for
excellence in engineering education. However, he was also
convinced that this critical requirement could not be met
unless our engineering colleges enjoyed full autonomy, as is
the case in USA, Germany, Israel and other technologically
advanced countries.
the central and state governments
Fortunately, his advocacy evoked a positive response from

the Government of Maharashtra, which asked him to lead the
aspirations with a sense of
transformation of the autonomous College of Engineering
urgency.
Pune by heading its board of governors. He took the onerous
responsibility and discharged it successfully, with the active
cooperation of other members of the board and Dr Anil Sahasrabudhe, CoEPs director, who, incidentally,
was hand-picked by Dr Kohli for the job.
to
respond
to
their
soaring
Today CoEP proudly claims to have become an IIT-like institution in engineering education. This
impressive transformation has been thoroughly researched and documented by my colleagues, Dr Leena
Chandran-Wadia and Aparna Sivakumar, in this report, which we are pleased to present for a critical
debate by all those who are passionate about enhancing the standards of engineering education in India
to world-class levels. However, this study goes well beyond telling the story of the turnaround of a single
engineering college. Ever since I first met Dr Kohli, along with my colleagues, to discuss how we might
vi
present the CoEP story, he was insistent that he would remain very unhappy if this successful experiment
did not serve as a template for replication in scores of promising engineering colleges across the country.
Accordingly, Leena and Aparna have expanded the scope of this report to make a compelling case for
speedily scaling up this autonomy-driven initiative to transform as many 100 engineering colleges into IITlike institutions.
It is a doable project. Indeed, it must be done.
***
The study often took us to meet Dr Kohli at his sea-facing office of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on the
11th floor of Air India building at Nariman Point in Mumbai, from where one gets a breathtaking view of
Marine Drive and the Queens Necklace. But breathtaking, in a different sense, has been our experience
in discussing the subject of educational reforms with him. In a voice softened by age, but in words
showing no effect of age, he would ask us: Why doesnt India have the best universities and colleges in
the world, even though Indian students are among the brightest in the world and many Indian teachers
are also among the best in the world?
He would provide the answer to his own question. Its because in India the government does not want
to give up control. Very few politicians understand the importance of excellence in education. Even less do
they understand what it takes to achieve it. As far as bureaucrats are concerned, they love to exercise
control through the power of their position. Even when one IAS officer takes some good decision, his or
her successor is quite likely to reverse it. Therefore, I strongly believe that the governance of education
must be left to visionary educationists.
He presented several innovative and practical ideas for quality enhancement in colleges and universities
in India. Here are some.
One: There are at least 50-60 engineering colleges in India today where the quality of students is
comparable to that at the IITs. If these colleges could be given autonomy and assisted with improving
the quality of their education delivery and their research, then India would produce sufficient numbers of
well-trained engineers who can engage in research and produce products, patents and services to deal
with the many challenges facing our countryI say this again: THIS COUNTRY HAS NO BUSINESS BEING
POOR.
Two: Why dont we create a cluster of colleges in a city and empower them to share their teachers, labs
and other resources, and enable their students to take common courses and conduct common research
assignments? A cluster provides the right size of students and teachers, and the right pool of shared
resources, to introduce quality-augmentation innovations. Each cluster should have clear goals and
targets, and incentives to achieve them. For this to happen, the cluster needs to have a common board
of governors, who can be drawn from the member-colleges. Over a period of time, each cluster can
evolve into a university in its own right.
Three: Let us introduce the concept of the Burden on the Beneficiaries. Let the nationalised banks
(chairmen of all of them have agreed) pay Rs 1 lakh per student per year against every student taking
admission in these top colleges, which would be treated as loan to be repaid by the student with a simple
(and not compound) interest, two to three years after graduation. The money thus received should be
used, in a transparent and accountable manner, by the college authorities themselves without any
interference from the bureaucrats of the state or central governments.
Four: Excellent teachers alone can make an institution excellent. One of the things that motivates and
benefits a teacher the most is the opportunity to go abroad either to study or to teach at great
institutions. Our college and university teachers do not have enough such opportunities. They also do not
provide adequate opportunities to our teachers to network with other experts, industrialists, eminent
scientists, Nobel laureates, etc. The institute could effectively use the available funds for this purpose,
among other purposes.
Five: India needs to vastly increase the number of engineering students doing PhDs. Unfortunately, most
students opting for the PhD programme (about 2000 each year) do so because it is an essential
qualification for a teaching job. We need PhDs who can conduct seminal research oriented at solving
problems. Therefore, the brightest among BTechs and MTechs should be incentivised to do PhD, which
typically takes 4-5 years of additional time in academia. For this, government and industry should create
a separate fund to significantly raise the compensation to PhD students, so that they dont feel that they
are forgoing good job offers after graduation or post-graduation.
All these are great ideas, and Dr Kohli has shared them on numerous occasions with decision makers at
all levels. However, he has a lament. All of them say, These are good ideas. We should implement them.
But collectively they do very little. We have created a system that simply does not absorb good ideas and
implement them quickly on a big scale. And when something good is happening, the system has a way of
undoing it. bit by bit. Its very frustrating. It burns you out. I often ask myself, Why am I doing all this?
But then I tell myself, I must continue doing all this, because I believe in it. By now I have realised that
IN INDIA, ONE HAS TO LIVE A LONG LIFE TO SEE ANY BIG-SCALE CHANGE.
***
Dr Kohli has certainly lived a long life. May he live many more years in active service of the nation.
However, the young people of India, aspiring and impatient, want to see big-scale change in the shortest
possible time frame. They are unwilling to accept delays. They will not tolerate small fulfilment of big
promises. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the central and state governments to respond to their
soaring aspirations with a sense of urgency.
At a time when the new government at the Centre, under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra
Modi, is planning big initiatives in higher and technical education, we at the Observer Research
Foundation Mumbai do hope that policy makers will give serious consideration to the ambitious and
innovative ideas presented in this report based on the replicable and scalable model of transformation of
the College of Engineering Pune.
Kudos to Leena and Aparna for producing this highly useful report. It is the result of dedicated research
stretching well over a year. Readers critical feedback is most welcome.
December 2014
vii
viii
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report is primarily a case study of the transformation of College of Engineering Pune (CoEP) after it
received complete autonomy from the Government of Maharashtra in 2004. The Board of Governors of CoEP
led by Dr F.C. Kohli, ably assisted by the faculty of the college and the Director, Dr Anil Sahasrabudhe, have
architected a remarkable turnaround in the quality of education delivery at the college in a span of just 6-7
years. The initiatives that helped put CoEP on the path to excellence can be replicated at other engineering
colleges. We therefore call for a 100 more colleges to be given complete autonomy by the respective state
governments, along with adequate funding and support, to similarly transform themselves in the same time
or less. We are certain that transforming existing good colleges, those with a high quality of student intake,
will be cheaper and faster than creating new IITs but we are not advocating an either/or choice for the
governments. Both must be done simultaneously.
The successful turnaround of CoEP is testimony to the fact that excellence can indeed be achieved through
autonomy despite many reservations having been expressed, particularly with regard to financial autonomy.
The enlightened leadership at CoEP has succeeded in inspiring and motivating faculty and staff to create a
student-centric institution, pursuing global standards of quality and committed to the all-round
development of students into top-class
engineers, researchers and entrepreneurs. Ideal
CRITICAL FACTORS FOR THE SUCCESFUL
initial conditions for this were created by the
TRANSFORMATION OF CoEP
Government of Maharashtra. They did not only
1. The vision of the Chairman of Board of
give CoEP complete autonomy but also adopted
Governors, Dr F.C. Kohli
a largely hands-off attitude, leaving the Board
free to charter the course for CoEP. With careful
nurture, determined efforts and excellent
management of people and resources, CoEP has
made full use of this autonomy to record
enormous progress, transforming itself into an
IIT-like institution one of the premier colleges
offering undergraduate engineering education
in the country today.
Many other factors came together to help CoEP
succeed which are listed in the box alongside.
We describe the transformation of the college in
detail and also provide a snapshot of where the
college stands today. Faculty and students have
been the beneficiaries, having been given access
to revamped state-of-the-art infrastructure in
laboratories, library, computing facilities,
hostels, sports facilities etc. They have in turn
responded with a Can Do attitude, excelling in
2. The hands-on involvement of all members of

the Board of Governors in different aspects of
institutional development
3. The leadership qualities of the Director, Dr
A.D. Sahasrabudhe
4. The open-mindedness of the faculty and their
willingness to rise to the challenge
5. The extensive mentorship of IIT Bombay with
regard to revamping curriculum, upgrading of
laboratories and training of teachers
6. Grant of complete autonomy and enabling
support from the Government of Maharashtra
7. Funding and guidance from TEQIP
8. Contribution of alumni and industry towards
mentoring, funding support, and research and
entrepreneurship opportunities for faculty and
students
everything from academics to extra-curricular activities and to community engagement, winning many
accolades. The College has now turned its focus to research and entrepreneurship, seeking to enhance its
post-graduate and PhD programmes, and is looking to MIT, USA for inspiration.
Despite all this the successful transformation of CoEP was neither easy to achieve nor guaranteed to succeed.
So why is it likely that their success can be replicated in 100 or more colleges? We explore this question
carefully in the report. Engineering education is among the key enablers of growth for transforming Indias
economy and engineering achievement is being relied upon to help generate wealth, create jobs and solve
many of the pressing social challenges facing the country today. Quality engineering education is therefore
an imperative. However, in a climate in which autonomy is unattractive to colleges (only 487 of nearly 37,000
colleges are autonomous), this challenge can only be taken on if the Central government, the regulatory
agencies such as UGC, AICTE, and others, all the state governments, the affiliating universities, faculty, staff,
and students, come together to find the will to succeed and overcome the trust deficits.
We begin the report with an overview of engineering education in India and move on, in Chapter 2, to a
discussion of the tangle of regulation and challenges associated with granting autonomy. In Chapter 3 we
detail the transformation of CoEP, the achievements so far, focussing particularly on the contributions of the
key stakeholders. We close with detailed recommendations from the Observer Research Foundation
Mumbai, outlined below, towards critical reforms in governance and in the regulatory framework, to enable
not just 100 engineering colleges, but all colleges, to provide an internationally competitive education.
MAIN RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Find the political will to grant complete and genuine autonomy to all good colleges at the
earliest, with adequate funding, to enable them to become IIT-like institutions;
2. Leadership reforms ensure stellar Boards of Governors in all autonomous colleges. Reform
governance models to involve faculty actively and make leadership accountable;
3. Move towards purely merit-based selection of faculty. Empower faculty to take charge of
academics and research. Build a large army of good teachers within the next 5 years;
4. Educate students for life, citizenship, innovation, employability and problem-solving to
successfully tackle the gigantic developmental challenges before India and the world;
5. Ensure diversity of student body on campuses. Permit institutions to enrol at least 10% of
students and faculty from outside the state and from abroad, to promote national integration
and to make India a global hub of learning;
6. Promote research and entrepreneurship. Aim to create 10,000 engineering PhDs a year;
7. Make full use of Information and Communication Technologies to scale quality education;
8. Tackle issues of affordability and equity with intelligent financing, scholarships and freeships;
9. Ensure transparency and accountability and weed out poor quality institutions;
10. Create a strong synergy between engineering colleges, industry and government
departments/agencies so that all three can benefit from it.
ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. WHY ENGINEERING MATTERS .......................................................................................................... 1
1.1. Engineering Education and Research.................................................................................. 2
1.2. Undergraduate Engineering Education in India A Snapshot ............................................. 7
1.3. The Premise of this Report Indias opportunity to create a 100 IIT-like Institutions in less
than a decade ............................................................................................................................. 10
2. EXCELLENCE THROUGH AUTONOMY ............................................................................................... 11
2.1. Governance of Affiliated Colleges ...................................................................................... 13
2.1.1.
Autonomous Colleges and Deemed Universities
16
2.2. Autonomy A necessary first step towards Excellence ..................................................... 16

2.2.1.
2.2.2.
2.2.3.
The Freedoms of Autonomy

Procedure for A College to Receive Autonomy
Autonomy and Higher Education in Maharashtra
17
19
20
2.3. Some Perceptions and Truths regarding Autonomy ........................................................... 21

2.4. The Quest for Excellence and the new National Higher Education Mission (RUSA) .......... 24
2.4.1.
2.4.2.
Assessing the Quality of an Educational Institution

Accreditation and Rankings
24
26
3. COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING PUNE 2014 A LOOK BACK.................................................................. 28

3.1. Initiating Transformation through Innovations in Governance ............................................ 29
3.1.1.
3.1.2.
A Collective Exercise in Vision, Mission and Goal Setting

Quality Time from Members of the Board of Governors
29
32
3.2. Bold Steps towards Academic Excellence ......................................................................... 35

3.2.1.
3.2.2.
3.2.3.
3.2.4.
Gap Analysis with IIT Bombay to Help Identify Areas of Deficiency

Twinning Arrangement with IIT Bombay for Curriculum Delivery
Measures to Empower Faculty
Enhancing Research and Consultancy Activities
35
37
40
45
3.3. Administrative Reforms...................................................................................................... 48

3.4. Financial Reforms.............................................................................................................. 51
3.4.1.
3.4.2.
Scholarships and Freeships

An Innovative Student Loan Scheme
54
55
3.5. The Outcome A Student-Centric Institution ..................................................................... 56

3.5.1.
3.5.2.
3.5.3.
3.5.4.
3.5.5.
Enriching Academic Infrastructure

Ambience and Amenities
Emphasis on Basic Sciences and Humanities
Promotion of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Community Engagement
57
64
66
67
68
3.6. Critical contributions from Stakeholders ............................................................................. 69

3.6.1.
3.6.2.
3.6.3.
State Government of Maharashtra A Mixed Bag

Board of Governors Exemplary Leadership
IIT Bombay Mentoring and Best Practices
69
70
72
3.6.4.
3.6.5.
3.6.6.
3.6.7.
3.6.8.
TEQIP Funding and Governance support

Faculty Initiatives Delivering on the Promise
Alumni Support Nurturing with Pride
Industry and Institutional Partnerships Creating new Opportunities
Student Contributions Energy and Verve
73
75
77
78
82
3.7. Challenges still Ahead ....................................................................................................... 82

4. ORF RECOMMENDATIONS ............................................................................................................. 84
4.1. Essential reforms for promoting Excellence ....................................................................... 86
4.1.1.
4.1.2.
4.1.3.
4.1.4.
4.1.5.
4.1.6.
4.1.7.
4.1.8.
4.1.9.
4.1.10.
Genuine Autonomy for many Good Colleges at the Earliest

Leadership and Governance reforms to stimulate Innovation
Student Body Education for Life and Citizenship
Making Affirmative Action Work
Recruitment and Empowerment of Faculty
Innovations in the Promotion of Research and Entrepreneurship
Judicious use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs)
Tackling Issues of Affordability and Financing
Weeding out Poor Quality Institutions Accreditation and Accountability
New Institutions Only Large Multidisciplinary Residential Research Universities
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
4.2. The Way Forward .............................................................................................................. 96

4.2.1.
4.2.2.
Policy Framework and Legal Hurdles

Mentoring by Institutions And by Individuals
97
98
5. ANNEXURE I METRICS FOR EVALUATING QUALITY ....................................................................... 100

5.1. Education Delivery........................................................................................................... 100
5.2. Institutional Infrastructure, Governance and Reputation ............................................... 102
6. ANNEXURE II ACCOLADES WON BY THE COLLEGE ....................................................................... 103
ABBREVIATIONS & GLOSSARY OF TERMS.......................................................................................... 106
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................. 108
LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................................. 111
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................................... 112
ABOUT ORF MUMBAI ...................................................................................................................... 113
1. W HY E NGINEERING M ATTERS
Engineering and technological innovation has been the main instrument of material prosperity and
human development since time immemorial. Its criticality in the progress of nations has vastly
increased in modern times. From bustling cities to the quiet corners of the Earth, from the depths of
the oceans to space, engineers have always sought to overcome challenges and create
opportunities that improve the quality of life and serve the needs of society. In the last century alone,
many great engineering achievements became so commonplace that we now take them for granted1.
From the most basic needs such as access to electricity, abundant supply of food, and safe drinking
water, to the automobile and airplanes, and to communication technologies such as the telephone
and the Internet, and even exploration of space, technology has been working hard for us. The fruits
of modern medicine have saved countless lives and the decoding of the human genome has opened
up a new and exciting era of research in the biological sciences in the 21st century. While these are
all remarkable achievements, there are many more challenges remaining to be overcome in the 21st
century. Some of these have been identified and listed as grand challenges for engineering 2, but
there will undoubtedly be surprises because engineering does not always follow only the envisioned
paths. Engineering advancement often leads society and influences peoples needs and culture, the
automobile and the Internet being just two such examples.
Many definitions of an engineer exist3 but in academic and professional settings an engineer is
defined as a person capable of using scientific knowledge, especially mathematics and science, to
solve real-world problems (Gereffi, et al. 2008). Scientists investigate the natural world and scientific
discovery or invention is celebrated as the realisation of human dreams. Innovation is the process
by which these discoveries are applied and put to work doing something useful for society (Olson
2014). Innovation is therefore the adoption of inventions, and engineers are pivotal in enabling
widespread adoption of inventions through their ability to make connections. Engineering is therefore
the sine qua non of technological innovation. The outcome of engineering efforts are technologies,
systems, machines, products and processes, not just for the benefit of civil society but for scientists
as well, giving them new instruments to probe the natural world with ever increasing accuracy. The
engineering design process, which seeks to find the best solutions given resources and constraints,
is an extremely creative one and in the accelerated pace of the 21st century we can expect to see
enormous strides in the biological sciences and in human health, as well as in the restoration of our
environment and its ecosystems.
Talent in the engineering work force has therefore, quite naturally, played a critical role in the
international competitiveness of nations. Post World War II, North America, Western Europe, Japan,
and many other countries have relied on science and technology based innovation for wealth
creation and for achieving phenomenal growth in their per capita GDP (Gross Domestic Product),
as is evident from Figure 1. China has shown an impressive growth spurt in its GDP since the 1990s
http://www.greatachievements.org/ accessed December 2014

http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/challenges.aspx accessed December 2014
3 For example, academic institutions in the United States (US) are divided over whether Computer Science (CS) and
Information Technology (IT) majors ought to be part of engineering schools whereas both India and China include CS
and IT graduates in their tally of engineering graduates.
2
Why Engineering Matters
when it began to invest heavily into education, but as a general rule countries in which the
development of an industrial society has either stagnated or declined, including in India, have had
much lower growth rates of GDP.
F IGURE 1: G ROWTH OF PER C APITA GDP: THE WORLD AND MAJOR REGIONS , 1950-2003. L EVEL
I NTERNATIONAL PPP $ S OURCE : Education and Economic Growth (Miller 2007) 4.
1.1.
IN
1990
Engineering Education and Research
There is persuasive evidence available in literature to suggest that growth of GDP is linearly related
to enrolment in tertiary education5 (Holland, et al. 2013) (Kurup and Arora 2010). It is also similarly
related to the number of engineers produced (Banerjee and Muley 2010). Figure 2 which is a
reproduction of their data from 1995 to 2006, of the output of engineers in India illustrates this.
Engineering education is therefore among the key enablers of growth for transforming Indias
economy and we must give it the attention it deserves.
It is disconcerting to find therefore that both in terms of the quality of engineering education as well
as the level of engineering education numbers of post-graduates (Masters and PhD degree
holders) India falls far behind both the US and China (Gereffi, et al. 2008) (Banerjee and Muley
2010). Whereas the Masters output in the US was as much as 50% of the undergraduate output
in 2002-2003, a study of the data from India between 1947-2006 shows that after increasing to
levels of 15-17% in the 1980s, the percentage of Masters degree holders actually started to decline.
It was only 8.5% of Bachelors degree holders in 2006 (Banerjee and Muley 2010) and is now at less
than 4% in 2013-14. This is certainly a crisis situation because Masters degree holders are required
in large numbers to begin entry-level teaching at many colleges and to create the pipeline into PhD
4
Chart based on data by Angus Maddison, Contours of the World Economy 1-2030AD, Oxford University Press, 2007,
http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/oriindex.htm accessed December 2014
5 http://www.decisionsonevidence.com/2013/01/relationship-between-tertiary-education-and-gdp-per-capita/
enrolments at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the National Institutes of Technology
(NITs), and at other institutions seeking to increase their research output.
F IGURE 2: E NGINEERS PER MILLION POPULATION TO R EAL GDP PER CAPITA FROM 1995 - 2006.
Source (B ANERJEE AND M ULEY , E NGINEERING E DUCATION IN I NDIA 2010)
The percentage of engineering PhDs produced in India has remained below 3% of the number of
undergraduate engineers produced each year since 1947. It dropped to less than 1% in 2006
(Banerjee and Muley, Engineering Education in India 2010) and has remained so ever since. The
count of PhD degree holders in engineering and technology produced in the United States (US),
China and India during a 10-year period from 1994-95 to 2004-05 is compared in Figure 3 (Gereffi,
et al. 2008). Indian PhD production has averaged in the high 700s each year and has shown very
little movement upwards. Even as recently as in 2010-11, India produced just 1,682 engineering and
technology PhDs (UGC 2013), approximately 10% of all PhD degrees awarded in the country that
year but less than 0.2% of the number of undergraduate engineers produced that year6.
F IGURE 3: T EN - YEAR
TREND IN
E NGINEERING & T ECHNOLOGY P H D DEGREES

Source: (Gereffi, et al. 2008)
IN THE
US, C HINA
AND I NDIA .
See http://www.aicte-india.org/downloads/Growth_Technical_Institutions_310514.pdf#toolbar=0 accessed Dec 2014
Small wonder then that Dr F.C. Kohli, founder of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and doyen of the
Indian IT industry, has been advocating for the need to increase the number of PhDs urgently. Given
the steep shortages in researchers and faculty at all Indian educational institutions7, the pressure to
produce more PhDs is likely to remain high for the foreseeable future.
Dr R. A. Mashelkar, President of the Global Research Alliance and Chancellor, Institute of Chemical
Technology (ICT) Mumbai, emphasises that now more than
ever Indian educational institutions need to become active
INNOVATION->
in research and innovation, besides engaging in education
Converts knowledge into
delivery (Mashelkar 2013). World class centres of
wealth and social good
knowledge, education and learning must evolve in India
from the well-known three-step process of the Knowledge
RESEARCH ->
Creates new knowledge
Triangle, he says: beginning with the wide dissemination of
knowledge through education, moving towards the creation
of new knowledge through research, and finally towards
EDUCATION ->
Disseminates knowledge
converting knowledge into wealth and social good through
innovation. Most colleges in India barely do a reasonable
job of knowledge dissemination, he says, going on to add

there is not enough research being done in universities
and colleges and very few of them have evolved into using knowledge to create wealth by
promoting entrepreneurship.
F IGURE 4: S OURCE "R ANKING THE N ATIONS ON N ANOTECH " L UX R ESEARCH R EPORT A UGUST 2010.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/www2.itif.org/panelists+powerpoints/2013 -engineering-sridhar-kota.pdf
The shortage is estimated to be as high as 40% even at the IITs and higher in many places.
At a panel discussion titled Engineering 2.0: Rekindling American Ingenuity held in Washington DC,
USA, in September 20138, several eminent engineering educators shared their views on the kind of
changes necessary in engineering education in the US to better enable US global innovation-based
competitiveness. Perhaps the best characterisation of the challenge for the US, and coincidentally
also for India, is the following comparison of the competitiveness of various countries in one of the
important areas for industry namely, nanotechnology (Figure 4).
The data suggests that it is Japan, Germany and South Korea that are dominant and will be more
successful than the US at growing their economies with nanotechnology. Although the US is
unquestionably the world leader in research, it appears to be falling behind in its ability to convert
scientific research into competitively priced products through rigorous engineering. As with the US
Indian research is stronger relative to its ability to develop technology, but the similarity ends there.
India is placed at the lowest end of the minor league, way behind most countries, despite its
perceived strength in Science and Technology (S&T) education and research. This is the crisis that
we must confront urgently. The situation is likely to be very similar in many other cutting-edge areas
of science and technology based innovation. India has the fewest number of researchers per million
populations, less than 150 relative to over 4600 in the US (Figure 5). We are also not competitive
with respect to our patents and IP filings9.
Total Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (PPPS)
F IGURE 5: E XPENDITURE
ON
R&D IN I NDIA MUST INCREASE

Source: (Dahlman 2007).
I F WE ARE TO BE COMPE TITIVE
We must therefore urgently educate many more engineers who are adept at research, innovation
and entrepreneurship, at the post-graduate as well as undergraduate levels, so that they can help
create the technology development strength that we need in order to convert research from
laboratories into products and services in the market. Government as well as private sector must
invest more in Research and Development (R&D) and work together to build the necessary linkages
from labs to markets if not in all areas then at least in some strategically chosen areas. As the data
8
Conducted by The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a non-partisan research and educational
think tank. http://www.itif.org/events/engineering-20-rekindling-american-ingenuity accessed December 2014
9 http://english.hankyung.com/news/apps/news.view?popup=0&nid=0&c1=04&newscate=1&nkey=201412171245251
accessed December 2014
in Figure 5 shows, Indias investment in R&D, which has stagnated at roughly 0.8% of GDP for nearly
two decades now, compares extremely poorly with the investment of most other countries (Dahlman
2007).
What are the special challenges of educating the engineer of the 21st century? A report from the
National Academy of Engineering in the US (NAE 2005) points out the drivers of change: The rapid
development of high-bandwidth technologies
has enabled instantaneous communication,
During the course of his or her
as well as rapid access to and transmission
professional career an engineer
of information. Industry, business, research,
will have to learn to work with
and education are now all global activities. In
at least three or four new
addition, engineering projects and practices
technologies that are yet been
today are intertwined with public issues and
invented at the time he or she
policies, such as energy, the environment,
graduates. In my case it was the personal
health care, and government. For reasons of
computer, computer communications and the
both globalisation and public interaction,
Internet and the semiconductor electronics
engineers must have an understanding of
industry among several others.
people with different backgrounds and
different cultural values and must be able to
~ DR F.C. KOHLI
interact with them effectively.
Thus
CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF GOVERNORS, COEP
engineers must be more broadly educated

than in the past, and they must be able to
understand the wider context and effects of their work. Successful engineers in the global
workplace need much more than technical knowledge and skills.
A related comment is Dr Kohlis assertion During the course of his or her professional career an
engineer will have to learn to work with at least three or four new technologies that have not yet
been invented at the time he or she graduates. In my case it was the personal computer and the
entire hardware and software industry as we know it today, computer communications and the
Internet and the semiconductor electronics industry among others.
The key characteristic of the student of the 21st century is accurately portrayed by Dr Charles Vest,
former President, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in the report (NAE 2005): As we
think about the plethora of challenges, it is important, in my view, to remember that students are
driven by passion, curiosity, engagement, and dreams... Dr Gretchen Kalonji of the University of
Washington, expanding on Dr Vests desire to engage the passion and curiosity of students, states:
I think we need to undertake a far bolder reformulation of engineering education. Bluntly

speaking, with existing models, we are losing the battle for the imagination of our youth.What
I would argue for is a dramatic and fundamental transformation of the educational process.
These words are all too true about Indian education today, not just about engineering education but
about all streams of higher and technical10 education. We are simply unable to engage the passion,
motivation and curiosity of our students.
MIT and other leading engineering schools in the US and in Sweden launched the CDIO (CreateDesign-Implement-Operate) initiative 11 in the year 2000 to bridge the gap between engineering
education and the real-world demands on engineers. The initiative has grown to encompass 115
schools in seven regions of the world. India would do well to join this worldwide collaboration to
conceive and develop a new vision of engineering education (Crawley, et al. 2014).
1.2.
Undergraduate Engineering Education in India A

Snapshot
According to data from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), there are well over
1.63 million undergraduate students in engineering and technology streams12, in 2013-14, distributed
over 3,384 institutions, up from 0.66 million students distributed over 1,511 institutions in 2006-07.
The intake of postgraduate students in engineering and technology (not including students of MCA
courses) has grown from 23,100 to 63,430 during the same period, a woefully small number,
amounting to less than 4% of the count of undergraduate engineers.
F IGURE 6: A VERAGE N UMBER OF I NSTITUTIONS PROVIDING E NGINEERING D EGREES

Source: (Saeki and Imaizumi 2013).The public-private distinction is not available for China
A recent World Bank report titled International Comparative Study: Engineering Education in India
(Saeki and Imaizumi 2013) underlines some of the additional problems that beset undergraduate
education. First and foremost is the extreme fragmentation in the number of institutions. India has
the largest number of institutions (Figure 6) with the lowest number of students per institution, just
445 each on average relative to 7,331 in China and 2.213 in the US. The number of engineers
enrolled per million population is also the smallest in India just 1,290 relative to 3,149 in China
The term Technical education in India refers to education in Engineering, Technology, Architecture, Town Planning,
Management, Pharmacy, Applied Arts and Crafts, Hotel Management and Catering Technology etc. at different levels.
This is distinct from Higher education which covers education in the Sciences, Arts and Commerce, Medicine, Law and
Agriculture. However, in this report, we use the words Higher Education to refer to both streams.
11 http://www.cdio.org/about accessed December 2014
12 http://www.aicte-india.org/downloads/Growth_Technical_Institutions_310514.pdf#toolbar=0 accessed December 2014
10
and 2,570 in the US. This is correlated with the fact that the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in tertiary
education is still only 20% relative to in 28% China and the world average of 30%.
Their small sizes make it more expensive for institutions to provide the adequate faculty student ratio
and to support upgrades in laboratory facilities. It is also difficult for them to provide a critical mass
of education professionals to support other quality improvements. The faculty student ratio is
estimated to be 1 to 24 which also signals the severe shortage of faculty. AICTE norms suggest a 1
to 15 ratio at the undergraduate level and a 1 to 12 ratio at post-graduate levels. Figure 6 also shows
that of the 3,300+ institutions providing engineering education in India, only approximately 200
institutions are run by the government. The bulk is run by the private sector which accounts for a
little over 80% of the student enrolment in this sector.
Regional imbalance in the availability of educational opportunity is another serious cause for concern
(Biswas, et al. 2010). There is a very large skew towards the southern, south-western and the
western regions with nearly 63.6% of undergraduate seats and 62% of the post-graduate seats
available only in these three regions. Approximately 60% of these seats come from just 4 states
Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh (undivided) Karnataka and Maharashtra. The eastern and north-eastern
regions of the country have very few institutions on offer which means that access to education
becomes preferentially available to affluent students, those who can afford to relocate and live and
study in other states.
F IGURE 7: N UMBER OF P UBLICATIONS ON E NGINEERING , 2000 AND 2010

Source: (Saeki and Imaizumi 2013). Data from Web of Science, Thomson Reuters, Philadelphia
As mentioned earlier, the proportion of PhD students is extremely low relative to several other
countries and this is reflected in another key measure of quality education the percentage of faculty
members holding a PhD degree which is estimated to be just 20% at best, although there is no
reliable data available. This is very low, even among BRIC countries. Not surprisingly, research
output in terms of publications, citations and patents from India is relatively low. Figure 7 shows the
number of publications in engineering produced in India in 2000 and 2010, a period that covers the
improvements brought in by the first phase of the Technical Education Quality Improvement
Programme (TEQIP) of the Government of India (MHRD 2002). Citations are often used as a
measure of research quality and although India compares favourably with respect to Japan and the
United Kingdom (UK), it is still very far behind the US and recently also China both of which had
more than five times as many citations in 2010 (Saeki and Imaizumi 2013). Similar trends hold for
the total volume of patents produced by engineering institutions in India which is comparable to Brazil
and the UK, a few hundreds, but is well behind the US and China which have several tens of
thousands of patents each. Clearly India has its work cut out both in terms of improving access to
engineering education and in delivering on the promise of quality engineering education.

A 2011 World Bank report on the employability and skill sets of newly graduated engineers in India
(Blom and Saeki 2011) concludes that graduates lack higher-order thinking skills such as
analysing, evaluating and creating. The study finds that there is substantial dissatisfaction among
employers with regard to the quality of graduates, many of whom do not possess soft skills such as
reliability, ability to work in a team, and communication skills, which they consider as critically
important.
Although employability of graduates is the outcome that is uppermost in the public perception, there
are several other important concerns with regards to learning outcomes in India such as: 1) our
ability to prepare students for coping with change and for learning to learn; 2) the need to balance
regional, gender, and social imbalances; and 3) our ability to deal with issues relating directly to the
delivery of quality education in many engineering colleges the acute shortage of faculty, the
inadequate and rather static curriculum, poor leadership and governance, the lack of infrastructure,
little or no emphasis on research and the low counts of institutions that are accredited. The National
Knowledge Commission had described the situation in higher education in India, in 2007, as a
quiet crisis that runs deep an apt description that unfortunately applies even today.
By far the best engineering and technology education in the country today is provided by institutions
that are under the purview of the Government of India the Indian Institute of Science (IISc),
Bangalore, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the National Institute of Technology (NITs) and
the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs). However these cater to a very small fraction,
only approximately 3%, of the total strength of over 1.6 million students. The remaining 97% or more
students study in colleges that are under the purview of the various state governments. Admissions
to these institutions have become so competitive that the chances of success are skewed in favour
of students who can afford large sums of money to pay for extensive coaching. Affirmative action
can do relatively little to provide access to poor students. Coaching classes have other well-known
severely detrimental effects on students which make it imperative for India to try and create many
more IIT-like opportunities for potential aspirants.
Although the clamour for creating more IITs will never cease, the essential point that is being missed
here is that there is absolutely no escape from working towards improving the quality of
engineering education delivery at the existing colleges that are controlled by state governments
and cater to the bulk of the students. It would be wise to ensure that some of the best colleges
begin work in this direction quickly, by giving them the requisite freedoms and encouragement, and
supporting them financially to rise to the challenge.
1.3.
The Premise of this Report Indias opportunity to create

a 100 IIT-like Institutions in less than a decade
The premise of this report is that a hundred of the existing 3,300+ undergraduate engineering
colleges can be transformed into IIT-like Institutions within a space of 5-7 years. Such an ambitious
effort at scaling out quality education cannot really be achieved without a template to model itself on.
It is therefore fortunate that a template is indeed available in the College of Engineering Pune
which has transformed itself completely post receiving autonomy in 2004. The chief architect of this
successful turnaround is none other than Dr F.C. Kohli, who was invited by the Government of
Maharashtra (GoM) to become Chairman of the Board of Governors. We bring you the detailed case
study of the successful transformation of this college and highlight the best practices that are worthy
of replication at other colleges.
College of Engineering Pune (CoEP), which is a government college affiliated to the University of
Pune, began its quest for excellence through the efforts of Dr F.C. Kohli who was keenly working
towards persuading the GoM to give autonomy to several colleges in Maharashtra (Kohli 2002). His
involvement was also the reason why the college received complete autonomy from the
Government of Maharashtra in 2004 with much higher levels of freedoms than that received by
any of the other colleges selected in the TEQIP-I 13 phase. Although autonomy and the TEQIP
programme were central to the transformation of the quality of education delivery at CoEP, many
other factors also came together, notably the mentorship and guidance it received from IIT Bombay.
This mentorship was indispensable to CoEP for becoming IIT-like.
We would like to emphasise here that the term IIT-like only refers to a steep increase in the
quality of education delivery and of research and innovation, which can create the same
perception of quality that makes studying at the IITs aspirational for most Indian students. We
are in no way referring to any kind of standardised definition of IIT-like and neither are we
suggesting that these colleges become clones of the IITs. It would not be in the interests of the
country to do so. These 100 colleges must achieve excellence in their own unique ways, displaying
the great diversity of thinking, culture, and creativity that is characteristic of India.
ORF Comment
We believe that transforming these 100 state government run colleges will be cheaper and
faster than establishing new IITs, although we are by no means advocating an either/or
choice. We urge the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) of the Government of
India (GoI) and all the state governments to make such an initiative possible by granting
complete autonomy to 100 of the best engineering colleges in the country and providing them
with the requisite funds.
13
See http://www.npiu.nic.in/teqip1.htm accessed December 2014
10
11
2. E XCELLENCE T HROUGH A UTONOMY

The Indian higher education system has been aptly described by the National Knowledge
Commission (NKC) as over-regulated and under-governed (NKC 2006). The consensus view that
emerges from interviewing many members belonging to the different groups of stakeholders in the
Indian education system is that much of the responsibility for the poor quality of education delivery
in the country today can be traced to two major sources:
Excessive and ineffective Regulation: The state governments, the affiliating universities, a
multiplicity of regulatory agencies such as the University Grants Commission (UGC), AICTE,
National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), and accrediting agencies such as the
National Bureau of Accreditation (NBA) and the National Assessment and Accreditation
Council (NAAC), and the various professional councils between them exercise enormous
control over colleges. Their complex and overlapping responsibilities and actions end up
constraining the good colleges enormously, taking away their ability to innovate, but dont
succeed in holding back colleges that are seeking to profit excessively;
Inadequate Funding: The extremely low level of funding provided to these colleges by state
governments, sustained over a period of several decades, has ensured that many colleges
do not have adequate infrastructure to support quality academics.
India has chosen to perpetuate the affiliation system in which colleges are overseen by parent
universities that control their curriculum and conduct common exit examinations on their behalf.
Typically universities affiliate hundreds of colleges in order to benefit from the affiliation fees paid by
colleges. However, they get so burdened by the resulting administrative overhead that they do not
put in sufficient effort into ensuring quality education through adequate oversight of the teaching at
colleges, frequent revisions of curriculum, etc. Many decades of this practice has resulted in a severe
drop in the quality of academics.
The Constitution of India made education the sole responsibility of state governments14 subject to
certain provisions15 in the Central (Union) List. Of these, item 66, referring to the coordination and
determination of standards in institutions for higher education or research and scientific and technical
institutions, became the basis for the creation of regulatory authorities such as the UGC, AICTE and
NBA among others. The 42nd Constitutional Amendment, enacted in 1976, removed education from
the State List and put Education, including technical education, medical education and universities,
vocational and technical training of labour into the Concurrent List 16 , on the grounds that the
substantive, financial and administrative implication required a new sharing of responsibility between
the Union Government and the states17. As a result the Central Government accepted a larger
responsibility while the role of the states remained largely unchanged.
14
Item 11 of List II (State List) in the Seventh Schedule of the constitution

Items 63,64,65,66 in the Union List (List I)
http://www.constitution.org/cons/india/shed07.htm#List%20I.-%20Union%20List accessed December 2014
16 Item 25, List III, Ibid, accessed September 2014. Also subject to the provisions of entries 63, 64, 65 and 66 of List I;
17Source DD Basu, Constitutional Law of India, 8th Edition 2011. We thank our colleague Radha Viswanathan for helping
us get clarity on this important topic.
15
Excellence Through Autonomy
Experience has shown however, that state governments have by and large abdicated their
responsibility to provide quality higher education. Although Indias education system fares poorly
relative to the world, the best educational institutions within the country today, in almost every
discipline, are invariably the ones that are affiliated to the Central Government. A closer examination
shows that the latter have a much higher degree of autonomy and vastly more generous levels of
funding. For instance, the annual budget of IIT Bombay is in excess of Rs 300 crore18 whereas the
budget of CoEP, is a modest Rs 30 crore. It is surprising that despite the phenomenal success of
the IITs, not a single state government has tried to recreate a similar institution of their own. The
minutes of the meetings of the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE) 19 make for interesting
reading. Education Ministers are constantly vying with each other to get IITs, IIMs and Central
Universities sanctioned in their respective states, when there is no reason why they cannot create
similar, premier, institutions on their own.
State governments have been content to focus largely on issues of access and equity. Their concern
is limited to ensuring that the provisions of reservations (Thorat and Senapati 2007), for faculty and
for students, are implemented. Beyond this, their concern is only to keep their subsidy burdens from
faculty salaries and fees of students from reserved categories20 in check. A quick look at the budget
of the Maharashtra Government tells its own story. In 2011-12, the GSDP (Gross State Domestic
Product) of the State was Rs 11,99,548 crore at current prices and Rs 7,87,426 at constant (200405) prices. In the same period the expenditure on education was Rs 12,993 crore on primary
education, Rs 9,735 crore on secondary education and a paltry Rs 1,585 crore on higher education.
The expenditure on higher education translates to less than 0.2% of GSDP21! State governments
must spend much more on education, particularly on higher education, if their institutions and
their young citizens are to thrive.
UGC, the main regulatory authority, was established in 1956 by the Government of India as a
statutory body with multiple responsibilities 22 for disbursing grants and for coordinating the
activities of higher educational institutions and maintaining standards. The plan to give multiple
responsibilities to one regulatory agency was an aberration in itself. It was expected that UGC would
perform the overarching function of regulating the higher education sector in the country. Over the
years UGC has ended up sharing the regulatory role with other bodies such as the AICTE23 for
technical education, with the professional councils such as Medical Council of India (MCI), Bar
Council of India (BCI) etc., and with the affiliating universities run by the state governments. Their
overlapping roles have contributed to plenty of confusion and delays in decision making.
18
http://www1.iitb.ac.in/AnnualReport/AR2011124Jul2013.pdf accessed December 2014

http://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/document-reports/Minutes-CABE-190610.doc_.pdf CABE is the highest
advisory body in Education. Its members are primarily the education ministers from the Centre as well as from all the
States but it also has representation from several other ministries and a few from academia. accessed December 2014
20 For example in self-financed courses, for which colleges are allowed to retain the fees collected, the fees of students
from reserved categories are paid to the colleges by the state governments.
21Economic Survey of Maharashtra 2012-13, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Government of Maharashtra,
http://mahades.maharashtra.gov.in/files/publication/esm_2012-13_eng.pdf accessed December 2014
22 http://www.ugc.ac.in/page/Mandate.aspx accessed December 2014
23 Statutory role for maintaining quality in technical education since 1987 http://www.aicte-india.org/aboutaicte.php
19
12
13
Both UGC and AICTE have tended to focus on inputs rather than on outcomes. They have put in
place stringent entry conditions for new institutions, and for the introduction of new courses in
existing institutions. Over the years, these have only succeeded in keeping genuine educators and
philanthropists from entering into the space of education delivery, while private players of dubious
reputation have thrived. As part of the implementation of the National Policy on Education 1986 (GoI
1992), UGC set up an autonomous accrediting body, the NAAC24, in 1994 while AICTE set up the
NBA25 the same year to help maintain standards. However, in the two decades that NAAC has been
accrediting institutions it has covered only 4,000 colleges26 from a pool of over 30,000 (Raju 2014).
NBA, which accredits programmes in technical education, not the institutions themselves, has also
covered only a small fraction of existing programmes27.
2.1.
Governance of Affiliated Colleges
The full complexity of the regulatory environment in which affiliated colleges find themselves can
only be appreciated by reviewing the regulations impacting the three categories of colleges:
1) Government (owned) colleges; 2) private colleges that receive financial aid from the state
governments, often referred to either as government-aided colleges or private-aided colleges; and
3) private, unaided, colleges that receive no salary and development funds from the government.
G O V E R N M E N T ( O W N E D ) C O L L E G E S are wholly under the charge of the respective state
governments. All the property, the land and buildings, are owned by the government and the faculty
salaries are also paid by the government. The colleges receive only sporadic development funds
from the governments and they are generally not allowed to retain the tuition fees collected from the
students. This means that colleges have very little money available for meeting recurring expenses
such as for replacing chemicals and other equipment in the laboratories or for maintenance of
facilities. Most colleges end up looking extremely run down in just a few years and remain that way.
For any other expenditure, even relatively small amounts say Rs 50,000, the Principal is obliged to
seek the permission of the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) of the State government. Some
colleges, those classified under 2 (f) and 12 (B) clauses of the UGC Act28 are eligible to receive
funds from the UGC for specific purposes, but such colleges number only a little over 6,000 in all.
There is no provision for admitting students from other states in government colleges. This is a poorly
thought-out move given that diversity on campuses is carefully cultivated in other parts of the world
for its potential to promote national integration and international understanding.
P R I V A T E C O L L E G E S ( A I D E D A S W E L L A S U N A I D E D ) are run by not-for-profit
organisations, typically either charitable Trusts or Societies. Although they are nominally run by an
Executive Council/ Management Board or Trust Board etc., these are generally controlled by the
promoters of the Trust or Society who also control the day-to-day running of the colleges tightly. The
managements (Executive Council/ Trust Board) include very few professionals outside of the families
24
http://www.naac.gov.in/aboutus.asp accessed December 2014

http://www.nbaind.org/views/Home.aspx accessed December 2014
26 http://www.naac.gov.in/docs/institutions%20accredited%20by%20naac-with%20validity.pdf accessed December 2014
27 http://www.nbaind.org/Files/AccreditedPrograms.aspx accessed December 2014
28 http://www.ugc.ac.in/recog_College.aspx accessed December 2014
25
of the promoters, an unhealthy practice that the regulators have chosen not to address so far.
Academics who are appointed as principals of these colleges tend to have very limited powers.
In recent times there have been plenty of discussions regarding bringing in more private participation,
including the corporate sector, into education in the PPP (Public-Private-Partnership) mode.
However, it is important to point out that private colleges are very rarely completely private. They are
in fact largely all Public-Private-Partnerships because the promoters often get land at
concessional rates from the State government, none of them pay any taxes and some of them
receive grants from the UGC. The government-aided
private colleges also receive funds from the state
governments to pay the salaries of their faculty. If the
college is also allowed to retain the tuition fees collected
from the students, then this aid is adjusted against the
tuition fees collected.
Faculty recruitment: Government-aided private
colleges are similar in character to government colleges
except that recruitment of faculty is made by the
management of the colleges instead of the state public
service commissions. Many private colleges are run by
minority groups which mean that special quotas for
admissions are available for students belonging to the
particular minority community promoting the college.
Private colleges are very rarely

completely private. They are in
fact largely all Public-PrivatePartnerships. The promoters often
get land at concessional rates from
the State government, none of
them pay any taxes and some of
them receive grants from the UGC.
The government-aided private
colleges also receive funds from
the state governments to pay the
salaries of their faculty.
Minority colleges are exempt from complying with

reservations for faculty appointments. The extremely
instructive outcome of this has been that these minority colleges are often among the best in their
respective streams. Although there could be other factors that contribute to this result, meritbased hiring of faculty is certainly the most important one.
Tuition fees in affiliated colleges can only be increased with the approval of the Fee Regulation
Committee (FRC) of the State governments. The FRC and the Centralised Admission Process (CAP)
are additional levels of control exercised by the State governments on all colleges. In recent years,
the unwillingness of the FRCs to hike fees has contributed to a steady erosion of the ability of
colleges to deliver quality education. There is no uniformity in decision making regarding whether
government colleges and private-aided colleges, can retain the tuition fees that is collected from
students, even within a particular state. Although government colleges ought to be allowed to keep
it, some are not. However, some private (aided) colleges are allowed to retain the fees. This kind of
arbitrary decision is very characteristic of this sector.
Permissions to start a new college or even a new course must be taken from either the UGC
(for higher education) or the AICTE (for technical education), who also regulate the intake or the
class size for each course. Strangely these permissions also have to be renewed every year! In
recent years many new and interdisciplinary courses have begun to be offered at colleges in the
self-financed mode. These are courses for which the colleges do not receive any aid towards the
14
15
Minority colleges are exempt

from complying with reservations
for faculty appointments. The
extremely instructive outcome of
this has been that these minority
colleges are often among the best
in their respective streams.
Although there could be other
factors that contribute to this
result, merit-based hiring of
faculty is certainly the most
important one.
salaries of the faculty so they can be hired only on

contract. Fees for these courses must therefore
necessarily be much higher. However, reservations for
student admissions, which is typically 52% (including the
quota for differently-abled students), apply here too and
since these students are eligible for tuition fee waiver this
adds to the subsidy burden of state governments. This
then becomes a compelling argument for the FRC to keep
a tight rein on the fees for such courses, so much so that
they are no more self-sustaining.
Exploitation of contract teachers: The faculty for these

self-financed courses are the hardest hit because their
salaries have to be paid for by the college, ostensibly from
the tuition fees collected for the course. The permitted
fees rarely stretch to cover an attractive salary for them,
particularly if the course requires consumables such as chemicals for laboratory work. The faculty
are employed on contract basis, one semester at a time. Given that these self-financed courses are
most often conducted in topics that have market linkages, for example in biotechnology, it is the
faculty with knowledge of such cutting-edge subjects who end up being maximally exploited. A large
number of faculty teaching regular courses are also employed on contract basis typically because
they have not cleared either the National Eligibility Test (NET) or the State Eligibility Test (SET)
mandated by the UGC.
U N A I D E D P R I V A T E C O L L E G E S have complete freedom to hire their own faculty and to
determine their salaries, since they do not receive any salary grants from the government. It is
extremely unfortunate therefore that most of these colleges pay salaries that are lower than the Sixth
Pay Commission salaries paid to tenured faculty by the government. Faculty at these colleges also
complain about being overworked and of other inconveniences such as not being given access to
infrastructure sometimes not even a staff room and/or a desk to work from. Such unscrupulous
managements are feared by the faculty.
The efforts by the state governments to ensure that education remains a not-for-profit activity have
failed completely. Private players have evolved a well-developed and well-established model that
allows them to siphon off funds. As required by law, the education institute itself is run by a Trust
or a Society which collects tuition fees and pays the teachers salaries. The promoters, often
politicians, also have interests in several for-profit companies that are created for the purpose of
providing services to their own educational institutes. All services to the college everything from
cleaning and catering, to transport, infrastructure management and technology support are
provided by these for-profit companies, allowing profits to be earned legally, an innovative
structure to handle an over-regulated environment (Vora and Dewan 2009). Many colleges also
charge capitation fees and apply other illegal levies. In many cases promoters run educational
institutions for some number of years and then re-use the land for other purposes.
2.1.1. A U T O N O M O US C O L L E G E S
AN D
D E E M E D U N I V E RS I TI E S
Although excellence in education delivery through autonomy and better governance have been
discussed extensively over the years (Kothari Commission 1966) (NPE 1986) (Gnanam 1990)
(CABE 2005) (Prakash 2011), and the option of requesting for autonomy has been available to
colleges practically since the time of Independence, only very few colleges have in fact opted for it.
According to the UGC, only 487 colleges are autonomous as of 1 August 2014.
The nomenclature of government-owned, government-aided and private-unaided colleges carries
over to autonomous colleges also. There is no such thing as a standardised set of freedoms that is
associated with autonomy. Colleges apply for and receive autonomy individually (Section 2.2.2) so
there are many combinations of freedoms that individual colleges receive.
With regard to revision of tuition fees post receiving autonomy, government-aided colleges must
continue to work with the FRC whereas a government-owned college such as CoEP can revise fees
through direct consultations with the State government.
All colleges, even autonomous ones, remain affiliated to their respective state universities and this
link is broken only when a college receives the status of a deemed university. This status also gives
colleges several other freedoms from fee regulation, centralised admission and many other
controls exercised by their affiliating parent university and state governments. The status of a
deemed university is therefore very attractive and there is a clamour for it, but also plenty of
controversy surrounding it29.
2.2. Autonomy A necessary first step towards Excellence

The spirit of autonomy is captured well in the following statement from the report of the CABE
committee (CABE 2005): The successful implementation of the concept of autonomy requires
willing and honest participation of the students, teachers and managements in the education
process. They should be willing to stand up to intense scrutiny of their role in an autonomous
institution. A system of academic audit at every step of the implementation of the concept of
autonomy should be acceptable to all concerned parties. The report goes on to say, An honest
exercise in autonomy academic, administrative and financial will contribute to making

universities and colleges into centres of innovation, excellence and development.
An acknowledgement of this fact is reflected in the approach of the TEQIP project which made
autonomy for colleges the pre-condition for their participation and for receiving funding support. In
the best case scenario, university and college autonomy encompass all the following freedoms:
the authority to nominate and empower their governing councils;
complete control over all aspects of academic activities;
29
http://www.newindianexpress.com/education/student/UGC-to-Review-44-Deemed-UniversitiesFate/2014/03/04/article2088610.ece accessed December 2014
16
17
the freedom to generate and manage funds from multiple sources including through the
levy of enhanced tuition fees; and

complete charge of general administration of the institution.
The only roles reserved for the Government in such an ideal regime would then be to:
provide funding in the form of block grants;
provide regulatory oversight, through accountability norms and specification of academic
standards in; and
take swift action on institutions that do not adhere to norms.
Only an autonomous institution, free from regimentation of ideas and pressure of party or
power politics, can pursue truth fearlessly and build up in its teachers and students, habits of
independent thinking and a spirit of enquiry unfettered by limitations and prejudices of the
near and the immediate, which is so essential for the development of a free society.
~ KOTHARI COMMISSION, 1966
The will to provide such a best case scenario in India is enshrined in the following quote from the
Report of the Education Commission 1964-66 (Kothari Commission 1966). Only an autonomous
institution, free from regimentation of ideas and pressure of party or power politics, can pursue
truth fearlessly and build up in its teachers and students, habits of independent thinking and a
spirit of enquiry unfettered by limitations and prejudices of the near and the immediate, which is
so essential for the development of a free society. This well thought-out description of the Spirit
of Autonomy is unfortunately nowhere to be found implemented in institutions run by state
governments today. The embodiment of the spirit of autonomy lies in all stakeholders striving
together, to the best of their abilities, to bring about the best possible outcomes for students and for
society.
2.2.1. T HE F RE E D O M S
OF
A U TO N O M Y
An autonomous educational institution is given a wide range of freedoms covering academic,

administrative30 and financial activities sometimes referred to collectively as complete autonomy.
It is more often the case, however, that only partial autonomy (relating mainly only to academic
activities) is awarded to colleges. Academic autonomy (CABE 2005) is primarily the freedom for the
college to:
specify admission procedures;
decide curriculum and revise it as often as necessary;
Administrative autonomy is sometimes separated into two parts for discussions managerial and administrative. We
will however keep the two together as is more commonly done.
30
introduce new courses and discontinue obsolete ones;

experiment with pedagogies, new and innovative teaching methods; and
evaluate students as per the criteria set by the college.
For faculty, academic autonomy implies complete freedom in the classroom to oversee the allround development of students through having a say in the entire value-chain from the choice
of the content of the courses and the selection of teaching material, to the selection and use of
appropriate pedagogies and concomitant evaluation methods. This freedom comes at the price of
a lot of additional work and faculty must willingly shoulder this natural responsibility for ensuring the
learning outcome of students. There are compensations too new opportunities for self-growth and
professional development as well as the freedom to undertake sponsored research and consultancy
projects.
Academic freedom to engage in the pursuit of truth without fear or favour is in theory
always available to all faculty members, even at affiliated colleges. It is therefore an inherent
obligation of the academic community to practise academic freedom vigorously to differ
from traditional or established authority, to revel in the freedom of expression available to
them and to be free from any kind of fear.
An important distinction must be made between Academic Freedom and the freedoms associated
with autonomy. Academic freedom to engage in the pursuit of truth without fear or favour is in
theory always available to all faculty members, even at affiliated colleges. If used wisely this
freedom ensures that originality, creativity, intellectual honesty and integrity are all consciously
promoted on campuses (CABE 2005). Academic freedom can help every university and college
campus become vibrant seats of true learning, where students are prepared not just for employment
but also for leading rich and meaningful lives. It is therefore an inherent obligation of the academic
community to practise academic freedom vigorously (Kothari Commission 1966) to differ from
traditional or established authority, to revel in the freedom of expression available to them and
to be free from any kind of fear. Unfortunately most faculty members do not exercise academic
freedom, for a variety of reasons.
The challenges of autonomy are well highlighted in the CABE committee report (CABE 2005) which
cautions that autonomy alone may not guarantee higher quality. The essential factors for high
quality education are the calibre and attitudes of students towards learning, the competence and
commitment of teachers towards educational processes, the flexibility and foresightedness of the
governance system and the social credibility of the educational outcome. Autonomy is expected
to provide a better framework for fostering these factors than the affiliating system. The wisdom
of this statement has been borne out by the experience of CoEP.
18
19
Academic autonomy is closely related to administrative and financial autonomy both of which are
not easily made available to colleges. Over the years, governments and the regulators have
demonstrated remarkable tenacity with respect to holding on to control of these domains. The
freedoms that are most often denied to colleges include:
The freedom to set criteria and processes for

selection of faculty: This is a pity, because this
Autonomy alone may not guarantee

higher quality. The essential factors
for high quality education are the
calibre and attitudes of students
towards learning, the competence
and commitment of teachers
towards educational processes, the
flexibility and foresightedness of the
governance system and the social
credibility of the educational
outcome. Autonomy is expected to
provide a better framework for
fostering these factors than the
affiliating system
freedom is indispensable to the success of any college

that seeks to be counted among the best. Instead
faculty positions are seen as another prime
government job and subject to political patronage;
The freedom to fix tuition fees: Tuition fees at

government owned and aided educational institutions
have been held at artificially low levels for several
decades. Although the intention was noble keeping
in mind affordability and the requirements of access
and equity this move has contributed in no small way
to the extremely poor quality of education delivery at
colleges today (Yashpal Committee 2009), benefitting
no one.
The hike in tuition fees that will therefore inevitably

follow the granting of autonomy to colleges can be
dealt with by ensuring that innovative solutions are
found for supporting students who cannot afford the higher fees. We discuss a few such innovations
made by CoEP in Section 3.4. After receiving autonomy CoEP has been able to raise fees at regular
intervals (by approximately 10% each year) with the approval of GoM, and to use the additional
funds to improve infrastructure in the hostels, the library and the laboratories.
2.2.2. P R O CE D URE
FOR
A COLLEGE
TO
R E CE I VE A U TO N O M Y
The procedure for a college to receive autonomy begins with the college making an application to
the UGC. Only those colleges that are recognised under the 2 (f) and 12 (B) clauses of the UGC Act,
a relatively small number31, are eligible to apply. The application must be supported by the State
government as well as the affiliating parent university because both have to issue NOCs (No
Objection Certificates) to the college. In the case of the state government, their support implies their
commitment to:
continue providing grant-in-aid funding to the college;
desist from transferring faculty out of the college post conferment of autonomous status;
31
See http://www.ugc.ac.in/recog_College.aspx accessed December 2014.
and to create a Governing Board to oversee the evolution of the college post autonomy.
The NOC from the university is a long drawn-out process in which the university affirms that:
the college in question has been in existence for over 10 years;
all its teaching programmes are permanently affiliated to the University; and
the university has satisfied itself that the college is prepared to handle all aspects of
autonomy.
UGC then constitutes its own committee, which includes nominees from AICTE, the state
government and the concerned university. This committee evaluates the request for autonomy by
visiting the college to satisfying itself of the worthiness of the college. After this, UGC sends out the
notice granting autonomous status to the college. The notice itself is routed to the College through
the affiliating university. The entire process takes a considerable amount of time (many months) and
often culminates in the award of only partial autonomy leaving out crucial administrative and
financial freedoms. Since partial autonomy is little better than no autonomy at all the unhappy
prospect of not being awarded complete autonomy is one of the important reasons why so few
colleges have applied for autonomy over the years.
2.2.3. A U T O N O M Y
AND
H I G H E R E D UC A TI O N
IN
M A HA R AS HT R A
In October 2007 a 2-day workshop entitled Autonomy in Higher Education A Retrospection was
held jointly with the Indian Merchants Chamber (IMC), Mumbai, at the instance of the Governor of
Maharashtra. The aim was to address the concerns of then Governor, His Excellency Shri S.M.
Krishna, regarding the slow progress of autonomy in the State. At the time, Maharashtra accounted
for just 6 of 150 autonomous institutions. Today Maharashtras share is 28 out of a possible 487, of
which half are either colleges of engineering or institutes of technology32.
The report of the meeting at Raj Bhavan provides several insights 33 into the key concerns and
perceptions of the different groups of stakeholders. Most groups expressed the view that
liberalisation, which came to the industry sector in the year 1991, needed to come urgently into the
education sector.
The teachers felt that there is over-centralised regulation and controls of bodies such as UGC,
AICTE, and National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) which needs to be curtailed. They
cautioned that the grant-in-aid formula must be kept intact so that salaries and service conditions of
teachers are fully protected in an autonomous system just as they are in an affiliating system.
The managements of private affiliated colleges felt that they must be allowed to keep 51% stake so
that they can retain control34 and their rights and privileges remain unchanged. They also expressed
the view that common statutes of autonomy be adopted by many universities. Managements of
minority institutions urged that the interests of the minority community be protected.
32List
of Autonomous colleges in India http://www.ugc.ac.in/oldpdf/colleges/autonomous_colleges-list.pdf accessed

December. 2014
33Available at http://rajbhavan.maharashtra.gov.in/Autonomyreport.pdf accessed October 2013
34This is a concern that is particularly important to private colleges where promoters would like to retain control.
20
21
The Vice Chancellors asked for increased funding to universities, particularly in the form of block
grants accompanied by institutional and functional autonomy. They reiterated the need to amend the
Act and Statutes of the universities that are relevant to autonomy. They proposed that a coordination
committee be constituted to encourage managements of colleges to come forward to request for
autonomy and that any institution wishing to do this be assisted and trained for the purpose.
A majority of the Vice Chancellors, while accepting that giving financial autonomy to colleges was
the prerogative of the state government, feared that such freedom will reduce access to higher
education for the poor.
The Maharashtra government responded to the call by the Governor to keep Maharashtra in the
forefront of knowledge activities and set up three committees in 2010 to look into higher and technical
education. The report of the Apex committee, chaired by Dr Anil Kakodkar, summarises the
deliberations of all three groups (Kakodkar 2011) and makes extremely well thought-out and far
reaching recommendations towards fostering excellence.
One of the key recommendations of the Apex committee was the proposal to create Maharashtra
State Commission for Higher Education and Development (MAHED), an autonomous body that
would be run by eminent academicians, scientists, technocrats, business/ industry and financial
experts. The role of MAHED would be to oversee, facilitate and guide institutions of higher education
in the state. It is a pity that these recommendations are yet to be taken up for implementation.
2.3.
Some Perceptions and Truths regarding Autonomy
We review some of the key concerns that have been expressed by different groups of stakeholders.
These will have to be addressed adequately for autonomy to become widely accepted.
Tuition Fees: As expressed by the Vice Chancellors and many other stakeholders, it is greatly
feared that autonomy will result in an inordinate increase in tuition fees, making the cost of
education unaffordable to poor students.
It is indeed true that fees at autonomous institutions will have to increase, even when the granting
of autonomy is accompanied by the infusion of a lot of funds from the government, as was done in
TEQIP-I. However, pitching autonomy against equity is not the correct argument. There is, in fact, a
genuine case to be made for raising tuition fees to some degree to reflect the real costs involved in
providing a quality education. The challenge is to find the balance. Fixing the quantum of tuition
fees using sound principles, and providing loans and financial assistance to needy students
(targeted subsidies), are both parts of a solution that is not without challenges but none that are
insurmountable (Section 3.4). This balance has been addressed successfully by many countries,
giving us a choice of models to draw upon (Khemka and Lytle 2011).
Opposition from Faculty: Any announcement regarding autonomy to colleges inevitably

results in opposition from sections of the faculty35,36. This opposition stems primarily from
worries about the preservation of salary and service conditions post autonomy, but there are
several other reasons too.
Most teaching faculty would prefer to be permanent employees of the state/Central government,
drawing the attractive salary scales awarded by the Sixth Pay Commission. In reality, this group of
permanent (tenured) faculty is rather small in number in most institutions. The bulk of the teaching
faculty are employed on contract basis for a variety of reasons:
1)
They do not satisfy the eligibility criterion for the posts sanctioned by the state government;
2)
They satisfy the eligibility criterion but there are simply not enough sanctioned posts, because
the state governments are slowly withdrawing tenured positions, as and when the present
incumbents retire, in an effort to save costs;
3)
They work for private unaided colleges. Some of these managements are unscrupulous and
tend to exploit faculty;
4)
They are teaching self-financed courses in which the fees, despite being relatively high, are
insufficient to cover the costs which must include the salaries of the faculty.
Invariably, contract salaries are poor and the service conditions worse. The most unacceptable terms
of service is however reserved for faculty who work on a Clock-Hour-Basis. In Maharashtra, they
are typically paid Rs 300 or less for a 50-minute lecture! Ironically it is often the permanent faculty,
who oppose autonomy most vociferously.
Since faculty become responsible for the complete academic cycle in an autonomous college from
determining the curriculum, to ensuring quality delivery and being accountable for student outcomes
many faculty members are reluctant to take on this additional workload.
Faculty are also apprehensive about transitioning from the loosely held control of state governments
into the more tightly-held charge of college managements, fearing stronger oversight and
degeneration in service conditions. As mentioned earlier, these fears are not completely unfounded
and must therefore be addressed through adequate accountability norms.
Quality of Graduates: There is apprehension in some groups parents, prospective
employers and even some educators who fear that once the constraints on curriculum on
teaching and examining processes are lifted, students will turn out to be inadequately trained.
This apprehension is misplaced because autonomy is unlikely to be granted to any but the best
colleges those that are accredited B grade or perhaps even A grade or higher by NAAC or the
NBA. Such colleges have extremely capable faculty and attract the brightest students so there is
little worry that students will not be trained properly. It is imperative that we trust the managements
and the faculty of these excellent colleges and believe that the best and the brightest can indeed
35Opposition
in Kerala http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Kochi/teachers-slam-kerala-govt-decision-granting-collegesautonomy/article5206600.ece accessed December 2014

36 Delhi University Teachers Association http://www.indianexpress.com/news/du-teachers-oppose-hrd-ministry-plan-togrant-colleges-autonomy/1130796/ accessed December 2014
22
23
govern themselves and deliver results. Feedback from the employers and from society will act as a
powerful check, helping to keep the quality of education consistently high. Additional checks and
balances can also be put in place in the form of accountability (pro-active disclosure) norms.
Fairness: The worry is often expressed that because the evaluation and grading of students
in autonomous colleges is left entirely up to the faculty, these can be tampered with. Parents
and students appear to prefer a centralised exit examination!
This is a rather surprising and unusual worry to hear about, one that needs to be addressed with
care nevertheless. There is in fact no convincing argument that can be made for holding centralised
exit examinations in undergraduate and post-graduate courses, a time when students are being
trained for life and for citizenship. Graduates typically take up employment, become entrepreneurs
or go for higher studies all of which require not just academic credentials but also all-round
personality development, which cannot come from studying to an exit examination. Long years of
continuing with the practice of exit examinations has not only side-lined our faculty but also deprived
them of the capacity to take charge of the quality of education (Chandran-Wadia, Correia, et al.
2011). The best institutions for undergraduate education around the world are precisely those
where the faculty have complete responsibility for student outcomes.

UGC norms specify that there must be robust mechanisms in place at autonomous colleges for
grievance redressal. Colleges can be encouraged to build capacity to deal with specific complaints
regarding lack of fairness.
University Acts do not support autonomy: This is definitely a very serious obstacle to the
granting of autonomy to affiliated colleges and departments of many universities.
Since a university is created by an Act of Parliament or State legislature, and the Act sets out the
objectives, functions, governance structures, powers of the functionaries and bodies in the text of
the legislative act itself, the scope for providing autonomy to the university, and in turn to its affiliated
colleges, becomes limited by the provisions of the Act (Prakash 2011). As mentioned in the report
of the UGC committee for New Educational Management (Gnanam 1990), there is an urgent need
to review the Acts and Statutes relating to autonomy. Without such review, there can be delay in the
granting of autonomy to many good colleges and universities.
Progressive loss of autonomy: Universities and colleges often have to deal with political
interference in matters of admission, recruitment, examinations, civil works etc. Even
autonomous colleges tend to lose autonomy over time, for a variety of reasons including
reactions to litigations, movement of government functionaries, and so on.
For instance, GoM has recently gone back to controlling faculty recruitment at CoEP in response to
a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) filed by the Gazetted Faculty Association in the Mumbai High Court.
This is a crucial freedom without which faculty strength will start falling again, affecting the quality of
education and research at CoEP.
2.4.
The Quest for Excellence and the new National Higher

Education Mission (RUSA)
The Government of India has recently taken strong steps to rejuvenate the higher education sector
with a focus on quality and excellence. MHRD has recently announced a new National Higher
Education Mission, also known as the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyaan (RUSA)37 that is being
implemented as of October 2013.
The mission document (MHRD 2013) places great emphasis on providing ample funding to
universities and colleges that are under the purview of state governments, for the very first time. The
mission also makes granting of autonomy to good universities and colleges the central element, and
a key criterion, for providing state governments with generous block grants. A sum of more than Rs
99,000 crore is expected to be spent on the mission over two Plan periods, of which Rs 22,855 crore
has been cleared for spending during the Twelfth Plan 38 . The State Higher Education Councils
(SHECs) are expected to furnish comprehensive perspective plans for their respective states which
will be funded to the extent of 65% by the Central Government, except in the case of the North
Eastern States, J&K, etc., where the quantum of funding from the Centre will be 90%. The mission
even provides for preparatory grants to the States of up to Rs 10 crore each.
The Government of India has also been proactive in the past and invested towards quality
engineering education through their TEQIP programme, which is the longest running programme of
its kind in the country being run by MHRD with funding assistance from the World Bank (MHRD
2002). However, despite its many successes during Phase I, and also in its earlier interventions at
approximately 550 polytechnics during 1991 to 2007, TEQIP has made only a slight dent in the
challenge of educating the Indian engineer of the 21st century. Its present reach of just over 200
engineering college in phase II is a reflection of the lack of urgency shown by policy makers,
funding agencies, and the academic community itself, towards scaling out quality education.
The RUSA mission must therefore aim to scale out its interventions much more quickly. The mission
has done well to take many good pointers from the experience of TEQIP-I. The plan to provide
generous funding, the insistence on autonomy as a pre-condition, and the provision for careful
monitoring of progress using detailed Management Information Systems (MIS) are all extremely
good moves. The success or failure of RUSA will depend however on what the state governments
do with the block grants they get. If they make the effort to create more quality institutions such as
CoEP, the student community as a whole can benefit.
2.4.1. A S S E S S I N G
TH E
Q U AL I TY
O F AN
E D U C A TI O N A L I N S TI T U TI O N
Measuring the quality of higher education delivery at institutions is a difficult task all over the world.
In many developed countries it is mainly only the quality of instruction and the educational
programmes that are the focus of attention. In India additional parameters such as adequate physical
37
http://www.mhrd.gov.in/rusa accessed December 2014

http://www.mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/CABERUSA.pdf accessed October 2014. Details available in
http://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/document-reports/Newsletter-142013.pdf accessed December 2014
38
24
25
infrastructure laboratories, workshops, libraries and hostel facilities etc. need to be tracked The
report of the Education Commission (Kothari Commission 1966) suggested the following, partial, list
of parameters that could be used as inputs to develop metrics:
number and quality of faculty and staff;
number and general quality of students;
research output;
library facilities;
laboratory facilities;
quality of student discipline;
performance of graduates of the college;
innovations in teaching procedures; and
examination results.
Cautioning against the excessive use of enumerative data such as numbers of papers, patents etc.,
the Report on the Committee to Advise on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education
(Yashpal Committee 2009) made the excellent suggestion that performance criteria be aligned to
national and social priorities by focussing on the following three broad categories:
1) The socio-cultural aims of education enshrined in the Constitution, which assigns a
transformative role to education. Under this category the committee suggests addressing
issues of social justice and inequality among which steps to reduce caste and class
asymmetries, geographical diversity of faculty and gender asymmetry in student and faculty
intake (which is particularly glaring in technical education), are all to be taken into account;
2) Academic excellence: Here the report suggests paying particular attention to the immediate
milieu of the institution concerned for the creation of new knowledge, and in the experiential
learning opportunities it offers to its students. The committee suggests that all products of
academic work papers, books, audio and video material etc., are knowledge products
which must be evaluated not just against intrinsic merit, but against the criterion of
engagement with the community.
3) Institutional self-reform: Against this criterion the report points out that the capacity for
intrinsically inspired reform, in which institutions study their own problems and draw up
roadmaps for resolving them within specific timelines, is a true sign of autonomy. The
committee emphasises that the priority areas for improvement must be decided by the
institutions themselves.
Indeed this last suggestion is exactly what CoEP has been implementing over the past 8 years, since
2006, constantly reviewing their own progress and adding to their targets. Although a full discussion
of metrics is outside the scope of this document, we bring you a detailed list of metrics that have
been used by CoEP to track its own progress in Annexure 1. Many of these metrics were originally
introduced by the TEQIP programme. Several of the new metrics introduced by CoEP are similar to
the ones adopted by the NBA39 recently. These metrics must be widely adopted, expanded and
standardised under the RUSA mission, using inputs from many other engineering as well as nonengineering colleges.
2.4.2. A C C RE D I T A TI O N
AN D
R A N K I N GS
Indias NBA has become a full signatory40 to the Washington Accord41 recently, a move that will
enhance employment opportunities for Indian engineers around the world. The Washington Accord
is an independent agreement between 16 countries for:
mutual recognition of accredited engineering programmes;
benchmarking standards for engineering education their Graduate Attributes represent
the mutually agreed upon standard for accredited programmes; and
benchmarking of accreditation policies and processes.
The Washington Accord Agreement recognises that: Accreditation of engineering academic
programs is a key foundation for the practice of engineering at the professional level in each of the
countries or territories covered by the Accord. NBA has accordingly changed over from its focus on
input parameters to outcome-based accreditation along the lines of Accreditation Board for
Engineering and Technology (ABET)42. The outcomes that are considered include the capabilities
of the students at the end of the programme, where they stand two to three years after graduation,
research output in terms of publications, patents and products, placements, entrepreneurship, etc.
While accreditation is a process by which educational programmes or institutions are reviewed and
rated with respect to pre-agreed standards of quality, rankings are comparative studies of institutions
most often undertaken by private agencies. Different international ranking agencies have come up
with their own methodologies for ranking institutions. Although there may be some overlap in the
metrics used for accreditation and for comparative rankings, most ranking agencies use proprietary
metrics and methodologies43.
Many Indian agencies rank educational institutions in India and CoEP has been improving steadily
in their rankings of engineering colleges. At the start of TEQIP Phase I, CoEP had a TEQIP score of
just 5 and it did not figure in rankings anywhere. Towards the end of Phase I, in 2009, CoEPs TEQIP
score had climbed up to 9.5 out of a possible 10! As some of the rankings below show, CoEP is now
rubbing shoulders with the best known names in engineering education namely the IITs, NITs and
some of the best known private engineering colleges.
39
http://www.nbaind.org/Files/UG%20-%20Tier%20I%20Manual.pdf accessed December 2014

Press Information Bureau, MHRD release dated 13 June 2014 http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=0
41 http://www.ieagreements.org/Washington-Accord/ accessed December 2014
42 http://www.abet.org/accreditation/
43 http://www.indiaeducationreview.com/news/mhrd-holds-discussion-int%E2%80%99l-ranking-agency-improve-positionindian-varsities/10519 See also the article by Prof R. Natarajan, former Chairman, AICTE
http://www.indiaeducationreview.com/article/qualities-world-class-universities/11128
40
26
27
India Today-Nielsen ranked CoEP at 22 in 2009, 16 in 2011, 19 in 2012 and 15 in 2013 and
2014;
DataQuest ranked CoEP at 16 in 2011and 14 in 2012 and 14 in 2014;
Outlook India ranked CoEP at 24 in 2011, 22 in 2012, 20 in 2013 and 22 in 2014;
Delhi-based Global Human Resource Development Centre (GHRDC) ranked CoEP 9th and
7th amongst top engineering colleges of super excellence in 2012 and 2013 and 8th among
top government colleges in 2014;
The Week-Hansa Research Survey has ranked CoEP at 16 in 2013 and 20 in 2014;
Education World Magazine ranked CoEP at 31 in 2013 and 29 in 2014.
Of all these rankings, the Education World Magazine is the only one that excludes the IITs and NITs.
It ranks the top non-IIT institutions through a perceptual survey in which a large number of faculty
and students are asked to rank institutions on various criteria. No data is either sought or verified
from the colleges concerned.
The launch of the RUSA mission presents the country with a valuable opportunity to experiment with
autonomy and academic freedom, and to assist many more colleges to achieve excellence. Good
colleges in the country can now look forward to receiving autonomy as well as the funding necessary
to make best use of it. We believe however, that colleges will need much more than just autonomy
and funding. Most colleges will require expert assistance from eminent academics, researchers
and educators for revamping curriculum and infrastructure, for introducing new courses, for
initiating research programs at the cutting-edge, for innovation and entrepreneurship. They will
also need assistance from eminent industry leaders who can serve as members of the Board of
Governors and assist them with good governance, and with administrative and financial discipline.
It is in this context that best practices from successful autonomous institutions like CoEP, brought
out in the following chapter, can come in handy.
Newly autonomous colleges under the mission will be able to charter their own paths with regard to
restructuring and teaching of curriculum to produce some of the much-needed diversity that our
education system presently lacks. This will require outstanding leadership from the management
of these newly autonomous colleges. Most of all, it will require faculty members to step up to the
challenge that is being put to them.
College of Engineering Pune 2014 A Look Back
3. C OLLEGE OF E NGINEERING P UNE 2014 A L OOK B ACK

College of Engineering Pune was established by the British in the year 1854. Started as the Poona
Engineering Class and Mechanical School, it was used for training officers involved in public works
such as the construction of buildings, dams, canals,
railways and bridges. It is the third oldest engineering
college in the country, and indeed in Asia, after College
of Engineering Guindy which was set up in 1794 as a
survey school, and IIT Roorkee which was established
as Roorkee College in 1847. The Poona School was
renamed several times before it finally became College
of Engineering, Poona, in the year 1911.
The College boasts of an elite line-up of alumni some of
whom went on to architect the early civil infrastructure of
the country and of the world at large. One of Indias most
esteemed and illustrious engineers, Bharat Ratna Sir M.
Visvesvaraya in whose honour Engineers Day is
celebrated each year on September 15, heads this list
which includes other stalwarts such as Prof C. K. N.
Patel, Prof Thomas Kailath, Dr Madhavrao Chitale, Ms.
Sir M. Visvesvarayya, in whose honour
Lila Poonawala (the first female student of CoEP), Dr
Engineers Day is celebrated
Vijay Kelkar, Prof Sanjay Dhande, Prof B.S. Sonde and
Prof Suhas Patankar, industrialists Venugopal Dhoot, Sanjeev and Rajeev Bajaj, R. Vasudevan, Dr
P.S. Deodhar and B.G. Shirke among many others.
In the 1970s and through into the 1990s, College of Engineering Pune (CoEP) went through difficult
times, falling behind the IITs that had been set up in the 1950s and 1960s. In 2003, CoEP was
chosen as one of four lead Institutions from Maharashtra in the TEQIP project, the other three being
Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Mumbai, Shri Guru Gobind Singhji Institute of Engineering
and Technology (SGGS), Nanded, and Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI), Mumbai. On
the recommendation of an expert committee 44 set up for the purpose by the Government of
Maharashtra and as required by TEQIP, CoEP, ICT, SGGS and VJTI were given complete autonomy
in 2004 academic, administrative, financial and managerial on an experimental45 basis. Since Dr
F.C. Kohli had put in extensive spadework into getting complete autonomy for these institutions, well
before the TEQIP programme mandated it, the State government invited him to become Chairman
of the Board of Governors of all four colleges. However, Dr Kohli chose to take up the challenge of
transforming only CoEP, wisely making room for equally illustrious leaders to take charge of the
other three colleges.
44
The committee was chaired by Dr F.C.Kohli and had Prof S.P. Sukhatme, IIT Bombay, and Dr B.M.Naik, SGGS
Nanded, as members.
45 The thinking was that many more colleges could be considered for granting of complete autonomy based on the
performance of this first group. However, even though these colleges have done well, their performance was never
reviewed and no further action taken beyond the initial experiment.
28
29
Thus began the transformation of CoEP that unfolded relatively slowly in the early years but is now
progressing by leaps and bounds. We bring you a sense of the extent of the transformation that has
been achieved so far and the methods that have been used to achieve it. Although the evolution of
CoEP into a premier academic institution is still work in progress, the details we bring you make it
clear that the autonomy experiment at CoEP has been a resounding success. The Government of
Maharashtra, the University of Pune and the UGC can feel vindicated in the faith they have reposed
in CoEP and its leadership.
Although CoEP was granted autonomy in the year 2004, the process of transformation got underway
only in 2006, after Dr Anil Sahasrabudhe was brought in from IIT Guwahati by Dr Kohli, to take over
as Director. During the early years, the Board of Governors and Dr Sahasrabudhe put in most of
their energies, into improving education delivery. It is only in the last two to three years that focus
has shifted to the other two arms of the knowledge triangle namely, on nurturing research and
innovation towards wealth creation and social good.
3.1.
Initiating Transformation through Innovations in

Governance
CoEPs journey towards excellence has been driven by the vision of Dr Kohli and his determination
to succeed in achieving it, and also by the enormous effort put in by many groups of stakeholders
under his exemplary leadership. Just one meeting with Dr Kohli is enough to get caught up in his
optimism regarding the potential for transforming Indias engineering colleges. He is also extremely
well thought out about how to realise this potential as is evident from his actions at CoEP.
3.1.1. A C O L L E C TI VE E X E RCI S E
IN
VISION, MISSION
AN D
G O AL S E T TI N G
The years since receiving autonomy have witnessed significant change at CoEP, in academics as
well as in administration. Most remarkable among these is the effort that has gone into crafting a
broad-based, inclusive, effort to involve all stakeholders in the process of reform. Dr Kohli
directed his energies first and foremost into bringing about the necessary change in the mind-set
of faculty and staff. During the early days of autonomy he spent many hours discussing the
opportunity with them, understanding their concerns and addressing them, and successfully
enthusing and inspiring them to share in his vision for the college.
Dr Kohli and the BoG were aware that a clearly defined, well understood, and universally accepted
vision and mission statements were critical for any organisation that is seeking to bring its
stakeholders together to commit to a core set of values and common purpose. They decided to do
this with the professional assistance of Tata Consultancy Services and Kirloskar Oil Engines Ltd.
The Board ensured that faculty and staff participated voluntarily in the effort to craft these statements
and in setting goals for the College at the institutional, departmental and individual levels.
At least twenty-five meetings and workshops were conducted with faculty and staff at various levels
including Class IV employees. Several group exercises, games and discussions were conducted to
brainstorm, collect ideas, analyse issues and converge towards potential solutions. Faculty and staff
watched the Hindi movie, Bawarchi, in small groups, to analyse and to try to understand human
nature, behaviour and interactions. There was also a session for the discussion of Spencer
Johnsons book Who Moved my Cheese? which is an excellent book dealing with change in work
and life. A Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis was also done for
the College.
The outcome of this exercise was that the CoEP team identified five areas that required focussed
attention, and named them Challenges and Action Points (CAP) (see table below). The CAP on
branding and change effectiveness was named after the famous brand associated with the college,
namely the annual Regatta festival of the Boat Club which is over 85 years old. Five cross-functional
teams from among the faculty and staff of the institute were set up to come up with an action plan to
achieve the identified goals. All teams met several times, to discuss among themselves and with
other faculty and staff, to arrive at potential approaches to tackling the challenges.
T ABLE 1: C HALLENGES
AND
A CTION P OINTS
IDENTIFIED BY THE
B OARD
AND
F ACULTY
CAP 1:
Goals at institution-level, department-level and individual-level.
CAP 2:
Framework for assessment of departments and individuals.
CAP 3:
Processes identification, definition, and optimisation and MIS.
CAP 4:
Regatta 2 branding and change effectiveness.
CAP 5:
Knowledge upgradation and training.
OF
C O EP
By consensus, the institutes vision and mission statements were defined to be the following:
VISION
To be a leader amongst engineering institutions in
India, offering value based education, and constantly
pursuing excellence.
MISSION
To strive for excellence in all
facets of institute functioning.
The common objective was identified to be Quality and Excellence in Education and it was to be
pursued keeping in mind the core values that were adopted Excellence, Innovation, Ethics and
Commitment. The associated goals that were set in 2009 are listed in Table 2. Not all the goals have
been achieved yet, largely due to factors outside the control of CoEP. However, there has been
significant progress on many fronts. For example, the college is not yet a Deemed University but this
is not for want of trying. The entire issue of Deemed universities has been caught up in the courts
following the P.N.Tandon Committee Report submitted in 2009. The desired faculty-student ratio
has not been achieved due to intervention by GoM following litigation. Although all faculty members
do not have their PhDs yet, there has been enormous progress in this direction (see Table 7). The
goal of becoming a fully residential campus has not been pursued as forcefully as previously planned
30
31
because of having to reprioritise spending. The college is fully residential for girls but only about half
the male students can be accommodated as yet.
T ABLE 2: G OALS
SET BY THE COLLEGE IN THE YEAR
2009
1. To be a Deemed University and be counted among the top ten engineering institutes of
the country within the next 5 years.
2. To be a student centric institute, where academics is followed with utmost passion and
sincerity.
3. To attain a faculty to student ratio of 1:12 and 1:9, within 2 and 5 years respectively.
4. To be a campus where every faculty member holds a Ph.D degree, within 5 years.
5. To ensure continuous value addition to skillsets for all employees.
6. To strengthen collaborations within and outside India.
7. To establish interdisciplinary research centres.
8. To attain 25% growth in terms of programmes offered and intake capacity within 5 years.
9. To be a 50% and 100% self-sustainable campus within 2 and 5 years respectively.
10. To be a fully residential campus within 5 years.
A mechanism to monitor these efforts, and to identify and reward the best performers was put in
place simultaneously:
A framework for assessment of individual faculty and staff as well as of the departments
and the institute, was worked out considering how the goals of an individual, department and
of the institute as a whole are interlinked and symbiotic. Several Key Performance Indicators
(KPIs) were identified and an individual rating scheme was formulated. The departmental
performance framework was created based on the performance of individuals and on certain
common activities in the department. The institutional performance framework was evolved
similarly, based on the performance of all the departments and the common activities of the
institute. The entire framework for assessment is reviewed regularly for improvement.
A Management Information System (MIS) was created and deployed for overall institutional
monitoring and review. The MIS, which is constantly enhanced to cater to new requirements,
also includes features to enable self-assessment and analysis of training needs of faculty on
a continual basis.
Regular measurements, evaluations, and comparisons with short-term and long-term goals to verify
that they are on track, has helped CoEP implement timely measures to counter roadblocks in the
pursuit of excellence. An unwavering focus on achieving these collectively defined goals has played
a crucial role in creating the wave of transformation that continues to sweep across CoEP today.
3.1.2. Q U AL I TY T I M E
F RO M
M E M BE RS
O F THE
B O A RD
OF
G O VE R N O RS
The enormous positive impact made by the Board of Governors of CoEP can be attributed to two
main factors which were both engineered by Dr Kohli:
a. Choice
of Director
Dr
Kohli
was
instrumental
in
identifying
Dr
Anil
46
Sahasrabudhe , who was then serving as
the Deputy Director of IIT Guwahati, and
bringing him on board as the Director of
CoEP in the year 2006. As events later
proved, Dr Sahasrabudhe turned out to be
the perfect candidate for the job. He had the
necessary leadership skills the ability to
carry the faculty, staff and students with him
in envisioning and achieving the shared
goals of the college.
Prof Anil Sahasrabudhe,

Director, CoEP
b. The active participation of the eminent members of the Board of Governors in the affairs of
CoEP is another of the key reasons why the transformation has taken place in such a spectacular
fashion. The government resolution47 granting autonomy to CoEP prescribed a 12-13 member
Board as per the guiding principles of MHRD for TEQIP institutions. The first CoEP Board was
constituted accordingly by the Government of Maharashtra, in consultation with Dr Kohli. It had
representation from illustrious members of academia, industry and civil society as well as from
the Department of Higher & Technical Education and the Department of Finance of the GoM. Dr
Kohli then invited each member to take charge of a particular activity in the college such as
curriculum
design,
faculty
selection,
management of infrastructure, general
Hundred hours of quality time each year
administration including personnel related
from the members of the Board of
issues and some of the key committees such
Governors, many of whom are at CEO levels,
as Building and Civil Works Committee,
can be providential for colleges that are
Finance Committee and so on, based on their
badly in need of professional management

and enlightened leadership.
experience and expertise. The innovation
here was for Dr Kohli to request and receive

the support of every board member to
contribute at least two hours per week of their time to the college! Since UGC guidelines for
autonomous institutions (UGC 2013) prescribes a 10-member Board for government colleges,
the present BoG (Table 3) consists of ten members, but is supplemented by many special
invitees from previous Boards.
46
with the assistance of Dr Ashok Misra, then Director of IIT Bombay

Govt. of Maharashtra Higher & Technical Education Departments G. R. No. WBP- 004/ (341/ 04)/ (1)/ TE-6 DT 31-32004
47
32
33
Hundred hours of quality time each year from the members of the Board, many of whom are at
CEO levels, can be providential for colleges that are badly in need of professional management
and progressive leadership48. The innovation of engaging each member of the Board in a specific
activity of the college also contributed towards building
CoEPs strong foundation
Vision and mentorship of the

Chairman of Board of
Governors.
Leadership, open-mindedness
and progressiveness of the
Director.
An illustrious Board of
Governors from local
industry, academia and
government dedicating a
minimum of 100 hours a year
of their expertise to the
professionalism and capacity within the College, since groups

of faculty and non-teaching staff worked alongside each of
these leaders and learnt much from them during the process.
New incoming Board members have continued with the
tradition and the result is there for all to see. This practice
deserves to be emulated across all autonomous colleges in the
country.
Dr Kohlis zeal for transformation is shared by several
members of the Board. Many have brought niche and exclusive
skills to the table and some are contributing well beyond their
assigned roles. A quick review of the present composition of
the Board and the responsibilities of members (Table 3 below)
is sufficient to get a clear sense of the immense value that they
bring to the college. The governance model of CoEP of putting
in 100 hours a year is now being used as a role model by the

TEQIP49 programme.
college.
T ABLE 3: C OMPOSITION OF THE PRESENT B OARD OF G OVERNORS OF C O EP
Board Member
Profile
Contributions
Dr F. C. Kohli (Chairman)
Tata Consultancy Services
Visionary and mentor of the team.

Chief architect of the transformation
since autonomy.
Dr Sanjay Chahande
Principal Secretary,
Dept. of Higher &
Technical Education,
Maharashtra
Government Support
Mr Pratap Govindrao Pawar
CEO, Sakal Papers Ltd. , Pune
Chairman, Finance Committee

Revamping administration and
management of finances.
Mr Atul Kirloskar
Chairman, Kirloskar Oil

Engines Ltd., Pune
Building and Civil Works Committee

Renovation of heritage main
building
Some people have expressed reservations over the need for so much time from Board members. CoEPs experience
has shown that there is plenty for them to do. This is likely to be true also for other newly autonomous colleges.
49 http://www.teqipgoodgovernance.in/leadership-governance.html December 2014
48
Board Member
Profile
Contributions
Mr Maitreya Doshi
Chairman & Managing Director,

Premier Ltd., Pune
Full scholarships for students

Internship and summer jobs
Renovation of workshops
Dr W.N. Gade
Vice Chancellor, University of

Pune
Support from Pune University
Mrs Kanta Batra
Deputy Secretary, UGC, Delhi
Support from UGC
Dr B. B. Ahuja
Deputy Director and Senate

Representative
Personnel
Finance
Dr B. N. Chaudhari
Dean Quality Assurance and

Senate Representative
Quality
Dr Anil. D. Sahasrabudhe
(Member Sec)
Director, College of
Engineering, Pune
Overall leadership
*Dr B.S. Sonde
Former Chairman NBA, Former

VC Goa University, Prof.
Emeritus IISc
Curriculum revision
Faculty selections
Rules and regulations
*Dr G. B. Pant
Former Director, Indian

Institute of Tropical
Meteorology, Pune
Faculty selections
Hostel and residential facilities
upgradation
*Dr S. G. Dhande
Former Director, Indian

Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Curriculum upgrade
Rules and Regulations
Research awareness
*Com. Anand Khandekar
Former Director, Nvidia

Graphics, Pune
Alumni and industry support
*Dr Uday Salunkhe
Group Director, Welingkar

Institute of Management
Mumbai
Management perspective
*Mr Harish Mehta
Managing Director, Onward

Technologies
Industry support
Organisation of conferences and
workshops
*Dr S. K. Mahajan
Director, DTE, Maharashtra
Government support
*Dr A. E. Wagh
Deputy Secretary, Department

of Higher & Technical
Education, GoM
Government support
(* Invitees of the Board of Governors)
34
35
3.2.
Bold Steps towards Academic Excellence
Given the scale of the challenge with respect to reviving the quality of academics at CoEP, it is not
surprising that Dr Kohli and the BoG turned to IIT Bombay for help. Dr Kohli recalls with great
pleasure his conversation with Dr Ashok Misra, then Director, who promised him all the assistance
that CoEP needed. We capture the essential elements of the mentoring and support provided by
IIT Bombay in the early years that played a critical role in setting CoEP on the path to excellence.
3.2.1. G A P A N AL Y S I S
WITH
IIT B O M B A Y
TO
H E L P I D E N TI F Y A RE AS
OF
D E F I CI E N CY
In order to help everyone come to grips with the extent of change required at CoEP, and to be able
to plan for it, Dr Kohli knew that it was important to define a baseline, set a target and chalk out a
plan towards achieving the target. He therefore conducted a Gap Analysis between VJTI and IIT
Bombay (IITB) and also between CoEP and IITB, to help establish benchmarks (Figure 8). This was
done with the help of faculty from IIT Bombay as well as industry experts.
The benchmarking exercise which was conducted in 2005-06 covered everything quality of
students and faculty, deficiencies in curriculum, evaluation methods, teaching and learning
pedagogies, alumni engagement, infrastructure such as laboratories, library, etc., and the extent
of funding. The effort helped to identify the gaps between CoEP and the IITs clearly and to give
widespread acceptance within CoEP of the need to bridge this gap as a top priority. The outcome
of the exercise, captured in Table 4, also provided the basis for initiating reforms.
A new and completely revamped curriculum had to be the first item on the agenda. The BoG then
made the bold decision to abandon the CoEP curriculum completely and adopt the IITB curriculum
in its entirety.
Having made the decision to start with the syllabus from IIT Bombay, CoEP went about it in all
earnestness by first assisting their faculty to prepare for delivering the IIT syllabus. They used a
combination of intense training of the faculty members, described in the following section, as well as
relay of live lectures from IIT Bombay to CoEP in the early years, beginning 2007. They also put in
enormous effort into learning and duplicating the best practices from IIT Bombay such as:
Methodology of conducting classes, tutorials, assignments;
Practice of conducting student seminars and laboratory classes;
Practice of providing a large choice of electives to students; and
Using IITB-level question papers in CoEP examinations.
All this gave rise to a quantum leap in the standard of academics at CoEP.
F IGURE 8:
T ABLE 4: A
GAP ANALYSIS AND BENCHMARKING EXERCISE
BETWEEN
COMPARISON BETWEEN V ARIOUS ACADEMIC PARAMETERS AT
Students intake
Curricula
C O EP
AND
AND
IIT B OMBAY
IIT B OMBAY
IN
2005-06
IITs
CoEP
Excellent through JEE
Excellent through Maharashtra

CET
Well-staffed
Faculty and their

qualifications
C O EP
Well-qualified
Acute shortage (less than 50% of

the sanctioned posts were filled)
From best universities
Very few were well-qualified
Committed
Faculty were transferable
Continuous up-gradation, in keeping

pace with the changes
Completely outdated
One-to-one
Teaching-learning
process
Close interaction between teachers

and students
Education delivery left a lot to be

desired in many aspects
Strong on-campus connect
Evaluation system
Continuous evaluation
Only end-semester evaluation, left

to Pune University
36
37
IITs
CoEP
Good library
Academic ambience
Poor provisions and limited access

for both the library and computer
centre
Computer centre, that is open and

accessible round-the-clock
Infrastructure and
laboratory facilities
State-of-the-art, excellent, wellmaintained, available round-the-clock

for faculty and students
Outdated and limited access to

facilities
Support staff
Qualified and trained
Not sufficiently qualified
Funding
Adequate
Totally inadequate
Alumni
Connected, supportive and influential
Influential, but very little interaction

untapped.
3.2.2. T W I N N I N G A RR AN G E M E N T
IITB assisted CoEP with
Curriculum
Teacher training
Setting up of laboratories
Sharing of live lectures
WITH
IIT B O M B A Y
FOR
C U R RI CUL U M D E L I VE R Y
Recognising that their faculty would require considerable

assistance in adopting and delivering the new curriculum from
IITB, the BoG of CoEP came up with the brilliant decision to create
a twinning arrangement with IIT Bombay to share all aspects of
knowhow on quality engineering education delivery. They signed
an MOU with IIT Bombay covering adoption of the IITB curriculum,
assistance with teacher training and setting up of laboratories and
sharing of live online lectures. Several faculty members (19 in all)
from CoEP chose to spend one semester at IIT Bombay as part of this twinning arrangement. In a
role reversal, they became students and took courses that they would eventually be teaching at
CoEP, so that they could get first-hand experience with the methods of teaching and evaluation
practised at IIT Bombay. It is to their credit that they did not just audit these courses, but chose to
take them for credit, faring commendably in the evaluations conducted by the IITB faculty.
As a strategy, the twinning arrangement was perfect because it presented CoEP faculty with a
challenge, while at the same time giving them the means to deal with it.
P RE SE NT
DAY
C U R RIC U L U M , E V A LU A T IO N
A ND
G RA D IN G
The curriculum at CoEP is now revised regularly to keep pace with rapid technology advancements
and the college is completely independent in this regard. The undergraduate curriculum has been
enriched considerably with the introduction of several relevant and interesting electives, both at the
department-level and at the institute-level. A process has been set up for evaluating and updating
the curriculum with feedback from staff, students, placement cell, and industry interactions.
Comments and suggestions are also invited online, from the students. All the undergraduate
programmes of the institute have been accredited by the NBA.
A good educational system should have a transparent and fair evaluation system that promotes
learning without causing undue duress to students. Taking a cue from IITB, CoEP has adopted a
method of continuous and transparent assessment of student performance, using periodic quizzes,
assignments, mid- and end- semester examinations. The academic calendar is announced well in
advance and is strictly observed. The notification of results is done within a week of the last
examination. A bold move towards transparency and fairness was the decision to show all test
papers to the students after evaluation these include the continuous evaluation tests as well as
the end-semester paper. Dr Sahasrabudhe recalls how in the early days, many students queued up
to discuss their papers with the respective faculty. This meant that faculty had to apportion enormous
amounts of their time to reviews and grievance redressal, causing considerable apprehension that
this move may be unsustainable in the long run. Gradually however, as faculty members established
their reputation for fairness, the length of the queues shortened and is down to a trickle today.
Rules and regulations for awarding the B.Tech50 degree have also been formulated along the lines
of those used at the IITs. The college started out with an absolute grading system, but has now
switched over to a credits-based relative grading system using SGPA (Semester Grade Point
Average) and CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average) instead of absolute and percentage marks.
S H A R IN G
OF
L IV E L E C TU RE S
FR O M
IIT B O M BA Y
In 2007, CoEP and IITB tried out a novel experiment in distant education in which live interactive
classes from IIT Bombay were
Students attending an online lecture by IIT-B transmitted to COEP
made available to the students
of CoEP, sitting in their own
classrooms in Pune. Five sets of
video conferencing equipment
were purchased by CoEP two
of which were placed at IIT
Bombay and two more at CoEP,
with the fifth held in reserve. The
course and lecture schedule
were
aligned
with
IITB
timetable. The only difference at
IITB was in the allocation of
classrooms the courses being
transmitted to CoEP were
conducted in the studio. Faculty and students at IITB were able to see and hear the remote
classroom and vice-versa. IITB faculty could also take questions from students at CoEP.
There were plenty of teething problems, both with the technology as well as with the comfort levels
of students. The first hurdle with technology poor quality video and patchy audio was quickly
50
Nomenclature changed from B.E. to B.Tech by the GoM, at the time of granting of Autonomy.
38
39
overcome by using a dedicated connection between the two locations and high-end audio equipment
in the classroom. The impersonal nature of pure video-lecture transmissions was dealt with by
arranging for the corresponding faculty member from CoEP to be present in the classroom to act as
the bridge between the IITB faculty and students for each course. This improved the comfort level
of students enormously. The presence of a local faculty member helped augment the process of
online learning for the students giving them access to mentorship and guidance, and the
opportunity for additional discussions within the classroom and outside. This model was beneficial
to the CoEP faculty as well, because it increased their exposure to the subject and to new and
different pedagogies being used by their peers from one of the best institutions in the country.
Such interactive sessions also helped provide CoEP students with access to courses beyond the in-
house expertise for instance, Fundamentals in Science, a pre-requisite course at the IITs. The
college availed 20 online courses in all from IIT Bombay. This immensely successful, live, interactive,
video-based remote location model used by CoEP in 2007-08 has now become a role model for
similar initiatives elsewhere. Faculty from the IITs are training large numbers of teachers as part of
the NMEICT 51 project. The QEEE 52 programme of MHRD anchored at IIT Madras is beaming
courses taught by some of the best faculty, drawn from all the IITs, to nearly 100 colleges around
the country, a number that will
A WebGuru session in progress by Vinay Kakade
be soon be grown to 500
colleges.
CoEP has also intensified its
communication, collaboration
and cooperation with several
other academic institutions,
both in India and abroad. The
institute
hosts
expert
interactive lectures by CoEP
alumni who address students
from their homes and offices
through the WEBGURU
Project
of
the
CoEP
53
Foundation . Elective courses on topics such as Living Machines, Entrepreneurship Development,
Computer Graphics and Nanotechnology have also been floated with the help of US-based alumni.
Several other webinars and lectures and visits from faculty abroad for conducting courses for an
entire semester have further enriched the academic canvas at CoEP. The results are measurable
and very heartening, as can be seen from the metrics listed in Table 5.
CoEP ensures regular audits of academic activities, not only by formal agencies but by reputed
academicians from different institutions as well. For instance Prof K. D. Srivastava, former VicePresident of British Columbia University, reviewed the progress of CoEP in 2008 and indicated that
51
Project webpage http://www.it.iitb.ac.in/nmeict/home.html December 2014

See http://pilot.edureform.iitm.ac.in/ for details December 2014
53 http://www.coep.org.in/index.php?pid=41 December 2014
52
although the direction of reforms was excellent, the pace needed impetus. Other audits done over
the years include those by Prof R. Natarajan, former Director of IIT Madras and Chairman AICTE;
Prof B. S. Sonde, former Vice Chancellor of Goa University; Prof Haresh Shah, Obayashi Professor
of Engineering and Professor Emeritus, Stanford University; and Prof Sanjay Dhande, former
Director of IIT Kanpur. The advice and suggestions received during these audits are implemented
diligently.
T ABLE 5: C OMPARISON
OF THE
Q UALITY
Metric
OF
A CADEMICS
BEFORE
A UTONOMY
AND
N OW
2003
2013-14
50-60%
90-95%
Students attendance
60%
85-90%
Timely completion of dissertation
30%
95%
Continuous evaluation
Faculty participation in curricula design
and evaluation
% of pass-outs
None
In place
< 40%
> 90%
85%
95%
% of drop-outs
28%
4%
Coverage of syllabus
60%
90-95%
10%
25%
75%
Average rating > 3.5/5
Seriousness in the conduct of classes
Percentage increase in topper score

In-house dissertation (PG)
Student evaluation of faculty
3.2.3. M E AS U RE S
TO
E M PO W E R F A C UL T Y
Faculty members are the core constituency of any educational institution and must therefore be
accorded a central role in the endeavours for
academic excellence. Since autonomy, Dr Kohli and
THE STRATEGY OF
the BoG have made it a point to involve faculty at
BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF COEP
every stage, beginning with the collective exercise
in vision, mission and goal setting, the Gap Analysis
Recruit, mentor, reward, and retain
with IIT Bombay and its follow up, and with all other
world-class faculty and staff who are
reforms. The MOU with IIT Bombay became a great
innovative, energetic, and dedicated to
opportunity for CoEP faculty to interact in depth with
the highest standards of excellence.
faculty from IITB and to gain in confidence.
The Board believed strongly in the strategy: recruit,
mentor, reward, and retain world-class faculty and staff who are innovative, energetic, and dedicated
to the highest standards of excellence. Accordingly, the college has taken many steps towards
faculty recruitment, development and empowerment:
a. The college has made full use of the opportunity accorded by academic autonomy to frame
their own rules and recruit faculty. They have succeeded in doubling their faculty strength post
40
41
receiving autonomy. Efforts are continuing to try and fill up all the sanctioned posts (Table 6).
Adjunct faculty and Emeritus Professors have also been inducted to strengthen the faculty.
Several former IIT professors are also now teaching at CoEP after retirement.
T ABLE 6: S ANCTIONED
STRENGTH AND
C URRENT
STRENGTH OF F ACULTY BEFORE AND AFTER
A UTONOMY
Lecturer/
Asst Professor
Associate
Professor
Professor
Total
Sanctioned
111
74
48
233
Strength prior to
autonomy
59
30
11
100
Current strength
121
56
30
207
Type of faculty
Adjunct Faculty (mainly from industry)
54
Professor Emeritus
13
b. Faculty are encouraged to earn their PhDs

from some of the best research institutes in
the country such as the IISc and the IITs.
AICTE has sanctioned the Quality
Improvement Programme (QIP) at CoEP for
funding faculty PhDs. A little over 50% of
the faculty have PhD degrees in 2013
relative to just 12 in 2003 prior to autonomy
(Table 7). More importantly, nearly half of
those who do not have a PhD are registered
for one. The mandatory requirement of a
PhD degree for attaining the Associate
Professor grade and beyond, imposed by
AICTE, is helping to drive this process as
well.
T ABLE 7: N UMBER
AND
E DUCATIONAL
Faculty Credentials
What I like very much is that we as a faculty

are very considerate of each others needs.
When someone is registered for a PhD we
make sure they have a lighter teaching load.
~ DR B.B. AHUJA, DEPUTY DIRECTOR
QUALIFICATION OF
F ACULTY
BEFORE AND AFTER
A UTONOMY
2003
2014
Faculty with PhD
12
112
Faculty with PG
80
93
Faculty registered for M.Tech
Faculty pursuing PhD
44
c. The institute encourages faculty to participate in national and international seminars,
conferences and training programmes. The processes involved in getting approvals to attend
conferences have been simplified significantly. In fact, faculty are offered financial support to
attend one international conference every three years, and one national conference or workshop
every year. During their trips abroad to
Faculty Empowerment
attend international conferences, faculty are
encouraged to visit at least one or two Priority given to personal and professional
universities in the vicinity to build new
enrichment of faculty members through
relationships, explore partnerships, observe
grants for research, higher studies, seminars
best practices and glean new ideas. Faculty
and travel, and laboratory upgrades.
are also encouraged to attend short-term
Additional income-generation opportunities
courses and get training from reputed
through consultancy and short-term
institutes in India and abroad. This helps
programmes.
them stay abreast of key technological
advancements in their areas of research and Decentralisation of control to give more
engage in knowledge exchange with active
administrative powers and avenues to
researchers in their field.
improve leadership and managerial skills.
d. Distinguished
Fellowships
have
been
instituted with alumni support to provide additional remuneration to high performing faculty
and to instil a healthy competition among them. So far these fellowships have been created in
the Civil Engineering and Metallurgy departments with corpus funds donated by alumni. The
fellowships also come with a provision for research funding, as well as support for a research
scholar to work with the awarded faculty member.
e. In addition to academic freedom, the administrative reforms instituted by CoEP have helped
democratise the institutional system. The responsibilities of Deans and Heads of Departments
are now assigned by rotation and multiple aspects of the functioning of the college have been
decentralised, giving the faculty better exposure to administration and several additional
opportunities to build up their management and
leadership skills.
f.
A detailed analysis of the training requirements

for faculty is conducted periodically to identify
the need for improvement of technical and soft
skills, with external support, as need be.
Workshops and training sessions are then
arranged through the course of the year, tailored
to the identified needs. This process will improve
further when the review, evaluation and planning
cycle is repeated frequently (annually), to ensure
continuous progress.
TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT/ CHANGE CYCLE
42
43
g. The CAP-5 Knowledge Up-gradation and Training subgroup has devised a Leadership
Enhancement and Advancement Programme (LEAP) that is being implemented in two-phases:

Phase 1 Analysing needs, developing courses, and training initial group of leaders;
Phase 2 Creating and enhancing appropriate training programmes.
T ABLE 8: B REAKUP
OF
F ACULTY D EVELOPMENT
PROGRAMMES CONDUCTED , BY
D EPARTMENT
Number of programmes
Number of faculty
members involved
Civil engineering
27
17
Electrical engineering
31
20
Mechanical engineering
65
19
Electronics and Telecommunications

engineering
107
17
Metallurgical engineering
66
10
Instrumentation and Control
21
07
Production Engineering
65
08
Computer and Information Technology
91
13
Applied Sciences and Mathematics
29
06
Total
502
117
Name of the department
h. Each faculty member is provided with access to at least one computer, either a workstation or
a laptop, with an internet connection.
i.
Each faculty member of CoEP receives a book grant. The institute also puts in either the full
share of membership fees to a national society or 75% of the membership to an international
society on behalf of each faculty member, as per their individual preference.
j.
In all approximately Rs 2.31 crores has been spent so far towards faculty development. Several
activities have been conducted since the time of autonomy, each involving many faculty
members (Table 8). Funding from the TEQIP programme, which had earmarked funds for faculty
development, has helped fast-track the process. Faculty have also attended several short-term
programmes within their departments towards professional development (listed in Table 9).
T ABLE 9: N UMBER
OF
S HORT - TERM PROGRAMMES CONDUCTED BY VARIOUS DEP ARTMENTS

D EVELOPMENT OF F ACULTY AFTER RECEIVING AUTONOMY
Department
P ROFESSIONAL
Number of Professional Programmes

conducted
Civil Department
85
Mechanical Department
49
Computer & IT Department
116
Electrical Department
50
Electronics & Tele. Comm. Department
39
Instrumentation & Control Department
31
Production Engineering Department
45
Applied Science
55
Physics
32
Metallurgy and Material Science
Mathematics
23
Total
TOWARDS
530
The policies and procedures that are currently in place for professional and personal development
at CoEP could be enhanced even further:
1. The college must ensure that Faculty Development Programmes are arranged during vacations
and holidays as far as possible, so that students are not affected by the absence of faculty.
2. Faculty should be allowed to visit other good universities (in India and abroad) on sabbatical
leave for one to two years. Currently, two faculty members have recently been permitted to visit
universities in US for a year and two years respectively on sabbatical leave. More faculty
members must be given opportunities like this to enrich themselves. However, this can be made
a regular feature only after CoEP has acquired the necessary faculty strength to ensure that
courses can continue without any set-backs in quality. The faculty-student ratios need to improve
well beyond the present 1:14.5 and reach 1:12 or better for this to become feasible.
3. The minimum qualification for induction of new faculty members must be a PhD Degree , so
that only well-trained teachers and researchers are available to teach, guide and inspire
students.
4. The process of inviting faculty from other institutes, from within India and abroad, must be
given further impetus. The sabbatical leave available to academics at American universities is
now being utilised by CoEP to invite them to Pune at very attractive terms, and have them
introduce new courses in cutting-edge areas. Three faculty members have so far been engaged
for one semester each. This initiative needs to be boosted further so that students as well as
faculty at CoEP get exposure to the latest technology and courses from around the world.
44
45
3.2.4. E N H AN CI N G R E S E A R C H
AN D
C O N S UL T AN CY A C TI VI TI E S
Having successfully put in time and effort into quality education delivery, CoEP has now turned its
attention to the goal of becoming a top research institution. Far greater emphasis is being placed
on enrichment of R&D through encouragement of research activities and recognition of research
performance. The members of the BoG are very supportive of this activity, fully recognising that
research has a profound role in adding
to the skills of the faculty. The level of
With the threat of transfers always
commitment to achieving this goal is
hanging over us it was very difficult
evident in the fulsome participation of
to feel motivated about planning
CoEPs faculty and students.
for and conducting research. After
An unforeseen benefit of autonomy
autonomy we have been able to
with
profound
implications
for
settle down and concentrate on
research, is the halting of faculty
building up our laboratories.
transfers out of the college once it was
given autonomy. The fallout of NOT
having to worry about transfers and

~ DR MRS P.P. REGE
DEAN, ACADEMICS
their next posting is that, for the very
first time, faculty were able to wholeheartedly plan their research activities, put in extensive effort to setup their laboratories and
engage in quality research! Redesigning and equipping each department with cutting-edge
infrastructure, laboratories, workshops and facilities consumes many months, sometimes years, but
faculty members are gladly putting in the effort since they are certain of being able to use the
infrastructure for their own research.
There is a lot of thrust on R&D from the Government of India and TEQIP as well. Two Centres of
Excellence, one each in Smart Renewable Energy Systems and Signal and Image Processing
are being set up under the TEQIP-II project through a grant of Rupees five crore each. CoEP is the
Giving Research a Boost
Faculty able to focus on research
without threat of transfer.
Increased
funding
from
TEQIP,
only institute that has received two of the total pool

of 30 centres that are available on a competitive basis
to more than 120 institutes that are part of the
research sub-component of TEQIP-II. CoEP has also
received large amounts of funding from other agencies

government, alumni and industry.
of the Central government, to the tune of Rupees 5
crore each year for the past three years. Industry is also
Increased industry and institute
contributing by supporting laboratory upgrades and
linkages for cross-collaborations and
project-based research. Almost every department has
consultancy.
two industry-supported labs. AICTEs Research
Promotion Scheme (RPS) that encourages research in
technical education also provides some support and direction for research. Given that over half of
the faculty members have their PhD degrees already and another 44 are in the process of getting
one, and given also that 267 students are currently registered for their PhD degrees, there is certainly
a flourishing environment of research prevailing at CoEP at the moment. Some research related
metrics are listed in Table 10 below.
T ABLE 10: D ATA
REGARDING
R ESEARCH
AND
C ONSULTING
ACTIVITIES
Publications
1,661 (516 published in reputed peer reviewed

international journals)
Academic products like books,

monographs, reports, etc. from the
college
39 since 2004
Patents
38 patents have been applied for so far, of which 7

have been granted
Research laboratories developed
3 labs, worth Rs 5 crore each
Department laboratories developed
25 state-of-the-art labs, worth Rs 25 crore
Industry-supported laboratories
10 labs, worth more than Rs 15 crore
PhDs completed in the last 5 years
76
PhDs registered currently
267 currently registered, nearly 140 in just the last 2

years
114 (Rs.34.97 crore) during last 5 years
R & D projects
CoEP has also been empanelled by MHRD for the

Virtual lab project under NMEICT, where students can
remotely run experiments on CoEP laboratories.
Consultancy projects
550 (Rs.11.38 crore)
It is important to underline the fact that the PhD programme at CoEP is not yet autonomous and
continues to remain under the supervision of the University of Pune. There are unusual difficulties
that students have to deal with as a result of this. For instance, the University makes it mandatory
for the students to submit the title of their thesis at the time of registration for the PhD degree! Such
a rule can only have been conceived by people who are unfamiliar with the process of research and
are motivated solely by the ease of administration. Inevitably students have to change the title of
their thesis, but the process is very hard and time consuming. It is only when CoEP receives Deemed
University status and takes charge of its own PhD programme that it can spare students some of
these unnecessary difficulties.
Students and faculty have contributed not just towards an increase in the number of publications
and in the count of R&D and consultancy projects since 2004-05 but also towards generating several
patents. A partial listing of some of the patents is in Table 11.
46
47
T ABLE 11: P ARTIAL
LIST OF
P ATENTS (I NDIAN )
APPLIED / OBTAINED BY
C O EP
Department
Details of the patent
Civil Engineering
Design of hip joint simulator to simulate human walking

action for testing of artificial prosthesis
Metallurgy and Material Science
An improved protective coating compounds for hot deep

galvanisation of steel

Engineering
Flow control system for solar water heating
Electronics and Telecommunication

Engineering
Method for determining health status of valve during their

operation.
Walking mobile charger

Engineering
Environmental friendly and energy efficient fuzzy logic

based air conditioner
Electrical Engineering
Sandwich type supercapacitor making process
Mechanical Engineering
Multipurpose cooling apparatus
Mechanical Engineering
Design and development of One TR Vapour Adsorption

Air Cooling System for Truck Cabin using heat from
engine exhaust
Electrical Engineering
Rotor structures for permanent magnet synchronous

motors
Development of Novel Variable Loading Wear and Friction

Monitor (VLWAFM) Pin-on-disc Sliding Tribometer
Electronics and Telecommunications

Engineering
Multimodal Biometric Verification System using Palm

features in visible and infrared domain
The college has also organised twenty-five national and six international conferences since 2007. A
joint programme titled Winter Research Academy by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA, IIT
Kanpur and CoEP was organised in October, 2008, a Design and Innovation Workshop with
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2010, and a Research Academy with Ostfalia
University, Germany was held in December, 2013. A one day workshop on Energy was held along
with TERRE France and Princeton University in 2013.
As mentioned earlier, faculty have been incentivised to take up consultancy projects by allowing
them to keep a very generous 75% of the income they generate from these projects. They are also
encouraged to conduct additional, short-term courses in evenings and during vacations, as part of
the Continuing Education Programme (CEP) of the college, to benefit working students and adult
learners. This again has been put together as a win-win situation for all, with the bulk of the income
generated going to the faculty concerned and the college retaining only 20% as overheads to cover
costs. The CEP has been extremely successful. Every course offered so far having been
oversubscribed.
3.3.
Administrative Reforms
The Government Resolution (GR) granting approval for autonomy to CoEP contained the following
administrative and managerial permissions:
change of nomenclature of the degrees awarded by CoEP to B. Tech and M. Tech instead
of B.E. and M.E. respectively;
permission to formulate their own rules and regulations with respect to recruitment and
service conditions of new faculty and non-teaching staff;

permission to recruit and fill sanctioned faculty positions (paid for by the State Government)
that were still vacant and to create new positions as required (to be paid for by the college);
autonomy to conduct research, procure equipment, refurbish laboratories, build new
infrastructure, engage in consultancy and continuing education programmes and take up
maintenance of buildings and equipment;
power to levy increased tuition fees subject to government approval and the permission to
retain the fees collected to cover expenses by the college.
In short, the GR gave the college complete power to raise the bar with respect to the academics and
to the quality of infrastructure and facilities available at the institute, a comprehensive set of freedoms
available to very few TEQIP colleges.
On the matter of admission of students, the GR states that Centralised Admission Processes would
continue to apply and that all benefits available to socially backward classes must continue. Until
2011, CoEP was in-charge of admissions to all autonomous institutions in Maharashtra which
entailed inviting applications, processing them, allotting seats as per the announced reservation
policy etc. After 2011, all admissions to autonomous as well as non-autonomous colleges are being
done by DTE to make it easier for students to apply to multiple institutions.
The administrative structure of CoEP, originally aligned to the requirements of TEQIP/ MHRD, has
since undergone significant changes. The present administrative setup is the result of extensive
administrative reforms initiated by the BoG, based on the principle of decentralisation for
competent governance, with higher levels of accountability and transparency. These include
unambiguous definitions of roles and responsibilities, and rules to ensure effective, efficient and
transparent functioning of all departments and of the institution as a whole:
The Director assisted by the Deputy Director and five Deans (Academics, Student Affairs,
R&D, Alumni Affairs and Quality Assurance) look after the colleges day-to-day
administration and academic activities, which includes those related to courses, the
teaching-learning process and examinations;
For the vibrant functioning of each individual department, the Heads of Departments are
assisted by Departmental Committees;
48
49
At all levels in the departments from the Senate to the UG and PG Programme Committees
there is representation of all stakeholders: students, alumni, members from industry and
academic experts from reputed institutes;
Hostel administration is taken care of by the Chief Rector with the support of Rectors.
Other notable changes incorporated in the new framework are the following:
a. The tuition fees have been revised every year to support the development and educational
needs of the college, with the approval of the State government each time. The annual
fees which was Rs 24,000 in the year 2007 has been increased at the rate of roughly 10%
each year since then and the present value is Rs 60,000. The hostel fees have been hiked
from a mere Rs 500 in 2007 to Rs 16,000 in 2014;
b. Existing rules have been modified and new rules have been framed for the recruitment of
faculty, and for other academic activities such as research and development, consultancy,
training and CEPs.
c. The delegation of administrative powers, appointments and tenure of Deputy Director,
Deans, other functionaries, and the policy of rotation of the positions of Deans and Heads of
Departments/ Centres/ Committees/ Clubs with a tenure of three years, have taken effect;
d. The institute has established and appointed Committees at the institute level for:
Promotions for faculty through the Career Advancement Scheme;
Promotions to senior scale and selection grade for faculty;
Sanctioning senior scale to Class III and Class IV staff;
e. Committees have also been set up to redress grievances of staff, faculty, students, SC/ST
employees, for dealing with sexual harassment at the work place, for discouraging ragging,
etc.;
f.
Norms for attending national/ international conference/ symposia/ training programmes have
been introduced;
g. The norms for equipment purchase, formation of write-off/ auction committees have been
simplified so that these matters are dealt with as speedily as possible;
h. Security services, garden maintenance, cleaning services, transport and related services
have been outsourced;
i.
A Management Information System (MIS) has been designed and implemented by CoEP
to manage and monitor different aspects of running the institution efficiently and to
ensure adherence to standards of quality at all times;
j.
A mechanism for streamlining mentoring and support to students has been created. Junior
students report to senior students, who in turn report to the faculty. Plans for providing the
requisite training to mentors and creating a consolidated FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
for common queries as a reference, have been worked out and posted on the College
website. A mentoring portal has also been developed to aid the process;
k. To further open the channels of communication, an intranet portal meant for posting
complaints and suggestions anonymously to College administration, has been created.
l.
An annual graduation ceremony is being conducted since October 2008. A global alumni
meet to engage the alumni in the functioning of the institution is also held simultaneously,
every year.
m. Online payment of fees, online availability of transcripts, and student verification by external
agencies has been implemented.
A view of the inside if the heritage main building of CoEP.
50
51
The BoG also initiated the process of creating a master plan for the historical college campus and
appointed a well-known architect Prof Christopher Charles Benninger for the same. The master plan
provides the vision as well an action plan for physical development of the campus for a ten-year
period, keeping in mind CoEPs goals, objectives and vision for the future, while enhancing and
preserving the existing identity and history of the campus. Some new infrastructural facilities have
already been provisioned according to the plan. This includes an academic complex54 with a hall for
online testing, an auditorium, classrooms, physics and chemistry labs, staff rooms for science faculty
and a new eleven-storey girls hostel55. While the land and buildings continue to belong to the
government, the Board insisted that they be allowed to put available resources to best use as they
deemed fit. It is creditable that the GoM agreed to this request and even provided funds for the
construction of these buildings.
The main heritage building of CoEP has been restored to its former glory by the renowned
conservation architect, Abha Narain Lambah56 and her team. It is now a source of great pride and
joy for all students and alumni. The Board and the faculty were initially hesitant about spending
considerable sums of money on the renovation of this building. Dr Kohli pushed it through eventually
by arguing that a renovated main building will restore not just the pride of the College, but also the
confidence and enthusiasm of faculty and students. He was of course completely right.
ORF Comment
Many of the transparent processes introduced as part of administrative reforms at CoEP are
very similar to those at the IITs. They are rarely seen in State government institutions. Dr
Sahasrabudhes familiarity with the governance system at the IITs helped him bring in these
welcome changes. It should be possible to adopt similar processes in all colleges.
3.4.
Financial Reforms
Before receiving autonomy, CoEP was allowed to have just one bank account into which funds from
the Maharashtra State government came in and went out each month, covering mainly only the
salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff, referred to as grant-in-aid funding. The college rarely
received any non-salary development funds, so much so that it was difficult to replace equipment in
labs or pay for chemicals and other consumables used in experiments! For non-salary expenses,
such as purchase of a piece of equipment for a lab, the college was expected to put in a requisition
to the State government. The government then purchased the equipment on behalf of the college
following a lengthy acquisition process. Revenues from fees also went directly to the state
54
http://ccba.in/public/index.php/projects/Institutes/19 accessed December 2014

http://ccba.in/public/index.php/projects/Housing/40 accessed December 2014
56 http://www.anlassociates.com/projects/educational-buildings/category/10-college-of-engineering accessed December
2014
55
government and if the college received any grants from non-governmental players such as alumni,
this amount was required to be deposited into the State Treasury. The college would then have to
go through a lot of procedural delays for withdrawing the funds and spending it for the very purpose
originally envisaged by the donor. Such
cumbersome processes only serve as
The effort has been to make
disincentives to philanthropic fund-raising
clever and optimal use of the
activities.
funds generated, procure
Post autonomy, CoEP has been allowed to
machines and materials by hard
retain both the grant-in-aid funding from the
negotiations
without
State government as well as the fees collected
compromising quality so that
from students. In a big departure from normal,
every is available for creating
every Rupee saved
GoM committed to continuing the grants to cover
more facilities in the institute.
salary, pension and provident fund of teaching
~ MR PRATAP G. PAWAR
as well as non-teaching staff holding sanctioned
MEMBER BOG,
posts, irrespective of the quantum of internal
CHAIRMAN FINANCE COMMITTEE
revenue generated by the college. The college is
expected to cover non-salary and other recurring expenditure from the internal revenue generated.
CoEP has also been permitted to raise funds through several other routes such as donations,
endowments and so on. New appointments for sanctioned positions, made after autonomy, were to
be governed by the rules framed by CoEP. These have all been eminently welcome moves.
The possible sources of income for any institution includes funding from the Government (non-salary
development funds that is largely non-existent today), tuition fees from students, income from
various sponsored research and consultancy projects, short-term courses, renting out spare capacity
(auditorium playground, labs, etc. when not in use), industry and alumni support, endowments and
interest from corpus funds. The CABE committee (CABE 2005) had recommended that public
institutions must work towards the golden ratio of 40-50% of its annual budget from Government
grants, 25-30% from fees and the remaining from endowments and other income. At CoEP this
ratio is presently 45% from Government, 45% from fees and 10% from other sources.
Financial reforms are essential to facilitate economically viable and self-sustainable academic
transformation. Raising tuition fees, leveraging other sources of funds, having the freedom to
purchase equipment and install infrastructure as necessary, and incurring other expenditure as per
the capability of the institution and the needs of the student community are all key aspects of
academic freedom. Without full financial freedom, academic autonomy is meaningless because
every academic activity be it the introduction of a new course, refurbishment of an existing lab,
introduction of new labs, inviting visiting faculty, organising talks and seminars, for instance,
requires funds. Cash-starved colleges simply cannot leverage academic autonomy.
The CoEP experience has shown that revision of tuition fees at regular intervals, albeit under the
supervision of the State government, is in fact a sustainable model for financing the college.
Therefore it should be acceptable to allow similar revision at many more colleges. A cautionary note
is that the administration of such a regime must be done scrupulously. It would be useful to also
52
53
announce criteria for the revision of fees tied to the facilities provided by the college, to inflation,
and other relevant parameters. This has been done in the case of school education in
Maharashtra57 recently.
ORF Comment
It is often talked about in academic circles that it should be sufficient to give academic
autonomy to colleges, that it is not necessary to give them financial and administrative
autonomy. We disagree completely with this view. Our best institutions must not be
handicapped in this way. They must be trusted to manage themselves so long as they
comply with specified accountability norms.
CoEP has taken several other measures towards important financial reforms. The accounts of the
college were switched over from a single-entry system to double-entry book-keeping, and
statutory auditors have been appointed for auditing of accounts. Guidelines for delegation of
powers and fiscal responsibilities have been instituted and authorisation granted for budget
approvals and spends of up to Rs 50,000 for the Deputy Director, Deans and Heads of Departments
(HoDs) and Rs 20 lakhs for the Director. A budgetary provision has been made for department-wise
allocation of funds. The departmental requirements are discussed in the meeting of the HoDs and a
proposal is sent to the Finance Committee which fine-tunes and approves the same. The Board then
ratifies the proposal after which it is ready for implementation.
Autonomy has also opened up opportunities to explore more partnerships and associations with
industry, alumni and other institutions to raise funds for working on interesting and often mutually
beneficial projects. Some examples include:
A very large number of small and large consultancy projects;
Upgrade of laboratories with in-built assignments to innovate and find new solutions to
challenges faced by the respective industry partners Eaton, Forbes Marshall, Bharat Forge,
Force Motors, and John Deere;
Sponsored research on several topics;
Remedial coaching for weaker students financed by Tata Communication Limited (TCL);
Financial support for students presenting papers in international conferences abroad.
These are just some of the important outcomes of CoEP having created a framework for outreach,
fund raising and sustained engagement with society, post receiving autonomy. With such a multipronged approach, CoEPs research grants and consultancy activities have improved dramatically
as is evident from the data in Table 10.
57
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Maharashtra-govt-plans-to-notify-law-regulating-school-fees-acrossstate/articleshow/33143180.cms accessed December 2014
As required by TEQIP, the following funds have also been created to help better manage the
finances of the college:
Corpus Fund only interest is used or ploughed back, keeping the main fund intact;
Staff Development Fund towards pension requirements and staff welfare;
Replacement & Depreciation Fund dedicated towards tackling removal of obsolescence;
Maintenance & Repair Fund earmarked for repair and servicing of equipment and
infrastructure.
The relief and the impact caused by the college being able to generate and spend additional funds
is evident when one talks to the students and faculty who had been forced to make do with run-down
and crumbling infrastructure prior to these changes. Dr Sahasrabudhe recalls how one of the first
steps taken at CoEP was to refurbish the hostels by fixing toilets, broken windows and lights,
and getting the rooms painted to make them more pleasant and liveable for the students, much
to their delight.
3.4.1. S C H O L A RS H I PS
AN D
F RE E S HI PS
Scholarships that fund either full or varying degrees of partial education of needy students have been
instituted from endowments
by alumni, industry and
My father sold a part of his land to pay my first-year fees, but what
philanthropists. The concept
about the next 3 years? Then I was awarded the Vinod Doshi CoEP
of need-blind admissions,
Scholarship. Suddenly my focus in life changed My life took on a
prevalent in the US, in which
different meaning.
students are admitted purely
on the basis of merit and later
~ KULDIP GUD
all students from weak
VINOD DOSHI COEP MERIT SCHOLAR (2013)
economic backgrounds are
provided financial aid, to whatever extent they need, is a wonderful way of rewarding merit that we
in India can emulate.
I was very impressed with the concept of need-blind admissions prevalent in many universities
in the US and wanted to set up something similar at CoEP. I believe that once these students are
relieved of their financial worries, they will be able to focus on their education and use it to lift
themselves and their families out of the cycle of poverty says Board Member Maitreya Doshi of
his decision to institute the Vinod Doshi scholarships at CoEP.
Accordingly, TEN FULL SCHOLARSHIPS that take care of the education of meritorious students from
economically weaker sections of society have been instituted annually. These Vinod Doshi
scholarships cover 100% of all costs involved, covering tuition fees, hostel expenses, books, travel,
54
55
I was very impressed with the

concept
of
need-blind
admissions prevalent in many
universities in the US and
wanted to set up something
similar at CoEP. Once these
their financial worries, they
will be are
ablerelieved
to focus
their
students
of on
their
education and use it to lift themselves and their families
out of the cycle of poverty.
~ MR MAITREYA DOSHI
MEMBER BOG AND CMD, PREMIER LTD.
a laptop and even pocket money for

the chosen students for the entire
four-year
duration
of
their
education. At any point in time, there
are forty Vinod Doshi scholars in
residence at CoEP, in various stages
of their education. This scholarship is
on par with similar scholarships in

some of the best universities in the
world and sets a wonderful
precedent in India. Vinod Doshi
scholars are also given internship

opportunities and the promise of an assured job at Premier Ltd., should they choose to exercise the
option.
3.4.2. A N I N N O V A TI VE S T UD E N T L O AN S CHE M E
Although it is often argued that higher education is a public good and must therefore be paid for
entirely by the government, this stand is not very practical. Tuition fees must generate at least 30%
of the cost of running an institution. The only care that needs to be taken is to ensure that the cost
of education is not an excessive burden for economically weaker families. Properly administered
targeted subsidies and/or loans is the only answer in a country like India where there is an
extremely wide variation in the capacity to pay for education.
Considering that quality higher education is expensive but is also an income-producing asset, and
taking into account the fact that graduates from good engineering colleges are assured of a relatively
high income, Dr Kohli argues that the Burden (for costs) must remain on the Beneficiaries.
Accordingly he worked with eminent colleagues in education and in banking58 to envisage a wellcrafted and innovative loan scheme that was endorsed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and
accepted by the Indian Banks Association (IBA) on behalf of all Public Sector Banks59. The scheme
has, however, not yet been put to use.
The scheme also envisaged that the banks would work closely with individual colleges to administer
the loan. For instance, in the case of CoEP the bank would pay the college Rs 1 lakh every year per
student admitted to the institute. This amount is paid directly to the institute but is treated as a loan
against the student, who is required to repay the total loan of Rs 4 lakhs for the 4-year graduation
period, starting two to three years after his/ her graduation. The total repayment time could be set
differently at different colleges and for different quanta of fees, but would generally be a 7-10 year
window. The most important aspect of this scheme is that the interest levied on the loan would be
58
59
Prof P Rama Rao, Prof P.N. Murthy, Dr Y.V. Reddy, Mr V. Leeladhar and others.
We would like to thank Mr V. Leeladhar for explaining the details of the scheme that was approved by RBI and IBA.
calculated as simple interest instead of the compound interest that is typically levied on such
loans, making it much cheaper for students to repay.
The college is in turn expected to assist the bank in tracking the students to ensure repayments.
Given the technologies available today, this is not likely to be difficult. In the case of CoEP it was felt
that the scheme could be brought in when the quantum of annual fees were made comparable to
that at the IITs, but that has not yet happened. As a thumb rule, fees must be tied to the quality of
infrastructure and facilities provided by the college and hence will vary across colleges.
3.5.
The Outcome A Student-Centric Institution
In Dr Kohlis words, there are only two important sets of stakeholders in any educational
institution, the students and the faculty. True to his beliefs Dr Kohli, with the support of the Board
of Governors, has ensured that CoEP is now a student-centric institution. This was a stated goal that
has now been achieved (see Table 2) but continues to be improved upon and refined continuously.
Another identified goal of attaining 25% growth in terms of programmes offered and intake capacity
within 5 years has also been achieved. Five new courses have been added and the student strength
has been expanded by approximately 25%. In 2003, the college had just a little over 3,000 students
and now the college can boast of over 4,200 students.
Prior to autonomy, only 23 students were awarded PhD degrees in the entire 150 year history of the
college. It is quite remarkable that in the last five years, 76 students have already been awarded
PhD degrees! Before autonomy only the undergraduate (UG) programmes were accredited. After
autonomy, all the UG and 17 of the 18 eligible post-graduate (PG) programmes were accredited by
NBA, not just once but twice. Recently, all 9 UG programmes have been accredited for five years
under the Tier-I category of institutions.
T ABLE 12: G ROWTH
OF STUDENT INTAKE AND PROGRAMMES AT
2003
C O EP - B EFORE
AND
A FTER A UTONOMY
2013-2014
B.Tech programmes
9 disciplines with 2,600 students
10 disciplines with an intake of 630

students in first year and 126
students directly in second year.
Total UG strength of 3,045 students
M.Tech programmes
18 disciplines with 445 students
22 disciplines with intake of 463

students.
Total PG strength of 900 students
PhD programme
50 students registered across all

engineering disciplines.
267 students pursuing PhD in all

engineering disciplines and
Chemistry
Provision of facilities for academic as well as non-academic development of students are paramount
to any institution. Every new initiative is geared towards contributing to an enabling environment
56
57
within which students and faculty can thrive, by strengthening themselves and also contributing to
the community and to society at large. Some of the accomplishments are elaborated in this section.
3.5.1. E N RI CH I N G A C AD E M I C I N F R AS TR U C T U R E
CoEP has successfully created an academic environment conducive to pursuing excellence, in the
form of comfortable classrooms fitted with state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment, well-maintained
laboratories with modern tools and amenities, large library
Laboratories feathers in the cap
with access to an extensive collection of books, journals
and periodicals, well-equipped computer labs with internet
The innovative labs set up in
connectivity in all departments as well as comfortable
Electrical Engineering department
hostels. Both the library and the computer labs have been
have been adopted in other
made available to the students round-the-clock. Not only
colleges, including in two of the
have existing laboratories been upgraded and modernised
new IITs and IIT Bombay and IIT
with funding from TEQIP, but several new laboratories and
workshops have also been created:
Delhi.
A Fab Lab, fully equipped with cutting-edge digital
CoEP has been empanelled by
MHRD for the development of

fabrication facilities such as computer-controlled
virtual labs that can be accessed
laser cutter for press-fit assembly of 3D structures
remotely through the web, by
from 2D parts; CNC wood router for making bigger
students of all engineering
2D and 3D parts, a vinyl cutter to produce printing
masks, flexible circuits and antennae, desktop
colleges as part of NMEICT.
precision CNC milling machine to make threedimensional moulds and surface-mount circuit boards, and various programming tools for lowcost high-speed embedded processors, PCB assembly, programming and testing with an
array of micro-controllers and micro-processors has been set up with the help of MIT Media
Lab, USA.
A state-of-the-art Plumbing laboratory has been built by the Indian Plumbing Association,
in the Civil Engineering department, with financial support from alumni to the tune of Rs.1.2
crore. This lab is now also being used to conduct courses in skill development, outside of
the main engineering curriculum.

Forbes Marshal has set up an advanced steam technology lab.
A micro-machining lab has been set up in the Mechanical Engineering department as a part
of the DST-FIST60 project, at a cost of Rs.1.1 crore.
Bajaj Auto has committed Rs 4.5 crores for renovation of the mechanical engineering
department.
60Fund
for improvement of Science and technology infrastructure http://www.fist-dst.org/ December 2014
The Production Engineering workshop was completely revamped and fitted with modern
machinery, thanks to an extremely generous donation of Rs 2 crore from Board Member,
Maitreya Doshi, CMD of Premier Limited.
A Switchgear Laboratory has been set up in the Electrical Engineering department with
industry support, from Larsen and Toubro (L&T).
Eaton has supported the creation of a state-of-the-art corrosion lab at a cost of Rs 55 lakhs.
Tata Steel has created a wire lab.
An industrial automation lab in the Instrumentation Engineering department has also been set
up with industry support, from Emerson and Rockwell.
Instrumentation department has set up a Control lab with the help of Quansar.
Kirloskar Oil Engines has donated Rs 1.5 crore for setting up an I.C. Engine lab. Ricardo and
AVL have donated software worth more than Rs 1 crore each for design and testing of I.C
engines.
Cognizant has supported an innovation lab by providing support for PCs and software.
NVidia has set up a GPU lab.
The Library, the hub of academic activity, has undergone significant transformation having gone
from being a closed access system to an open access system. It has been made more accessible
by extending opening hours from 8 am to 8 pm with the reading room remaining open until past
midnight for the benefit of students and researchers. Until as recently as 2005 06, the library was
open only from 10 am to 5 pm. All the books in the library have been bar-coded and systems
digitised. A security system has also been put in place. The library also offers an earn while learn
scheme by paying students to help keep it open for longer hours.

Students have been provided round-the-clock access to computing facilities across the campus and
hostel blocks. Access to other laboratory facilities is also available in extended timeslots. The
internet connectivity has been upgraded to a 845 Mbps fibre link to all classrooms, hostel rooms,
faculty rooms and department labs and a 1 Gbps link to the National Knowledge Network (NKN).
There are plans to upgrade the Wi-Fi connectivity to cover the entire campus.Each student is given
an institutional email id and group aliases for better communication and coordination. The
infrastructure has been fortified with various other installations such as 750 KVA, 3 transformers and
4 diesel generators, adding up to 1 MW of uninterrupted power supply to the campus. The college
has a state of the art power systems lab with SCADA monitoring and control system.
The College holds special sessions on Saturdays to deliver common-base technical lectures to boost
the understanding of technology and the basics of engineering among students. It is difficult for
students whose medium of education until grade 12 has been a regional language to cope with an
environment in which English is the medium of instruction. A language laboratory to improve the
language ability and the soft skills of students has been established which is accessible to all, but is
meant primarily for students from rural and tribal areas from regional language medium schools.
58
59
The College has also provided CDs/ DVDs for learning international languages like German, French,
and Japanese to the students. The College also has simulation software for students to practise
communication and interview skills.
Special lectures are also held at CoEP on Saturdays by academics and industrialists on a wide
variety of topics. The institute regularly organises occasional expert lectures by eminent
academicians, including several Nobel laureates, with support from Honeywell Technologies. Some
recent visitors to CoEP under this programme include:
Prof George Smoot (Nobel Laureate in Physics, 2006), 3-4 March 2008
Dr Roger Tsien (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 2008), 12-13 October 2010
Prof David Gross (Nobel Laureate in Physics, 2004), 10-11 April 2013
Dr Vedachalam, distinguished scientist from ISRO, 2011-2013
Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Former President of India, 14 February 2013
CoEP is also participating in the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) programme in which
two German students study at CoEP each year and in turn two CoEP students study in Germany.
Similarly faculty from both countries visit each others institute each year with DAAD funding. CoEP
is also a part of an Ontario-Maharashtra-Goa student exchange programme with exchange of
students between Canada and India. All these efforts have paid off and student outcomes are
improving with every passing year.
Prof George Smoot interacting with students
Dr David Gross at the Robotics Lab at CoEP
Dr Roger Tsien visits the Fab Lab at CoEP
Dr Abdul Kalam being welcomed to CoEP
Analytical and Sensor Design Laboratory
Micro Systems Engineering Laboratory
Fab Lab
Steam Technology Centre
Non-conventional Energy Resources Laboratory
Imaging Facility at Metallurgical

Engineering Department
60
Auto-Locking System for a

Wheel Chair
Kitchen Waste Recycling Plant
COEP Team won many accolades at SAE BAJA Competition
61
State-of-the-art Plumbing laboratory
CIVIL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
Fluid Mechanics Lab
Geotechnical Lab
Academic Complex Lab
Digital and Microprocessor Lab
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING & COMPUTER SCIENCE LABORATORIES

FOSS Lab (open source technologies)
Power Electronics Lab
Microcontroller and DSP Lab

Electronics Lab
Electrical Machines Lab
Control Systems Lab
62
63
Lecture series & demonstration of

defence robots "Daksha & Netra" at
COEP on the occasion of completion
of 10 years of Robot Study Circle
At Robocon Contest
Autonomous fire extinguisher robot
Autonomous fish robot for underwater

surveillance
For Pune Police Bomb Detection Squad to handle suspicious objects
3.5.2. A M BI E N CE
AND
A M E N I TI E S
The college is constantly striving to provide the best amenities that students can make use of to
learn better, explore their passions, showcase their talents and grow in confidence. To add a touch
of grandeur and excitement, and to instil a sense of pride and belonging in the students, elaborate
events are arranged to celebrate and welcome new students to the college as also to bid farewell to
outgoing students. Several initiatives that cater to imparting soft skills and behavioural training, as
well as courses to improve the subject knowledge of students have been introduced in the college.
Besides general amenities available to students in all colleges, CoEP offers a few additional
amenities to its students:
a. Students have access to internet anywhere, anytime on the campus. Two computer centres
have been provisioned in the hostels, in addition to a similar facility in all departments. The
computer centres are equipped with high-end servers installed with latest software. The intranet
houses a large resource of free and open educational material courses from IITs, MIT, etc.,
and also e-books and e-journals.
b. Summer remedial semesters are conducted for weaker students. Faculty take turns to conduct
these courses. This helps ensure that no one is left behind and everyone is given the requisite
attention to catch up and compete with the rest of the class.
c. A strong framework for student-faculty interaction has been established. Students are
supported by faculty advisors who provide counselling and mentorship. Junior students receive
mentoring from their seniors and alumni in addition to their faculty mentors. Every set of students
is assigned a faculty mentor and third-year student volunteers mentor 8-10 first-year students
each. This practice is in line with the support provided at some of the best institutes in the world
such as MIT, USA.
d. There are sports facilities for both indoor and outdoor games chess, table tennis, badminton,
carom, a huge playground for football, hockey, cricket and athletics, flood-lit volley ball court,
courts for tennis and basketball and a state-of-the-art gymnasium;
e. The college houses a historical boat club that goes back over eighty-five years and boasts of an
interesting collection of boats and other equipment for training students. This is a source of pride
and joy for all students at CoEP, particularly the rowing enthusiasts. The annual boating
extravaganza, the Regatta, is a much awaited event in the institutes calendar. It is also the only
boating club in India to own two Eighters boats.
f.
There are more than thirty other clubs in the college that provide students several avenues to
explore their interests and passions covering everything from aero-modelling, astronomy,
automobiles, energy, environment and entrepreneurship to subject-specific clubs such as
Ramanujam mathematics club, science, history and philosophy clubs.
g. Recently CoEP has partnered with Ayushman Pvt. Ltd., a web-based health platform company,
in their AyushDeep programme. Incoming students are screened for basic health parameters
64
65
and an online health record is created for each student that is made available to doctors and
select family members as per the instruction of students. The student will have access to the
portal and their medical record for life. The initial screening turned up plenty of surprises, even
in young students. For instance, many female students were diagnosed with anaemia.
h. The College recently received a DST project of Rs 1 crore for recycling the entire hostel waste
water. It has become the first campus to recycle and treat waste water.
CoEP Boat Club and the different boat formations at the annual Regatta
Astronomy Club at Rajghadh
3.5.3. E M P H AS I S
ON
B AS I C S CI E N CE S
AN D
H UM AN I TI E S
A special programme called EAGLE (Energised Accelerated Growth and Leadership Excellence)
launched in August 2013, addresses the frequently cited problem of poor employability of
engineering students, due to lack of communication skills. Designed by The Hermitage, it is fully
sponsored and strongly supported by several companies Kirloskar Brothers Limited, Thermax
Social Initiative Foundation, KND Engineering Technologies Ltd., Navazbai Ratan Tata Trust and
other trusts. The programme not only addresses the issue of communication skills, but also soft
skills, life skills, ethics and professionalism amongst students, aiming to make them more ready for
life. A unique feature of EAGLE is that CoEP and The Hermitage have jointly developed a webenabled tracking process called Learning Evaluation and Application Process to help students keep
up with the demands of the programme. The programme covers third year students, approximately
700 in number, every year. Students are divided into 17 batches of approximately 40 each. Classes
take place on Friday evenings and Saturdays. Many shy and introverted students have opened up
and become good team players.
EAGLE Team with the Chief Guest and sponsors during their 2014 Convocation ceremony
CoEP has instituted courses designed to strengthen knowledge of fundamentals among students
during their first year. A series of well-designed courses in physics, chemistry, mathematics and
biology, along with courses in humanities and social sciences are offered to students, in order to
help them build a more holistic perspective and to help them understand how to connect learning,
life and society (Nussbaum 2010). Apart from having their own faculty in Biology, Psychology and
English communication, CoEP hires external experts each year. There is also a language lab where
students can learn international languages during weekends.
From the academic year (2012-2013), mandatory one-credit liberal learning courses have been
introduced for all students. Ten areas have been identified from among which a student can choose.
These areas are Agriculture, Business, Defence, Education, Fine Arts, Health & Medicine,
Linguistics, Performing Arts, Philosophy and Social Sciences. Students are assigned to a faculty
mentor based on their subject choices. From then on, the student works with the faculty mentor and
with colleagues to explore the sub-area of interest, for the duration of one semester, finding
resources and exploiting them to the fullest, identifying and meeting experts in the area. The core
66
67
programme of the disciplines has been designed with emphasis on practice. Students are evaluated
on the basis of their rationale for selecting a topic in the area of choice, in the way they utilise
resources, how they synthesise all the information collected, how they present this information during
their final assessment and most importantly, their commitment and sincerity towards the course and
towards being a great learner.
The first edition of the course, which was offered only to second year students, was taken by
approximately 800 students. In 2013-2014, the course was offered to third year undergraduate
students and M.Tech students as well. Well over 950 students registered during the first semester.
In all about 2,000 students took the course. 22 faculty members were involved in the first year and
the number has increased to 50 in the second year. The aim will be to keep the faculty student ratio
below 1:20. The feedback from both students and faculty has been incredibly positive so far, with
both sides welcoming the opportunity to learn about new areas, make visits to practitioners, and to
do things differently.
3.5.4. P R O M O TI O N
O F I N N O V A TI O N AN D
E N T RE P RE N E U RS HI P
There is increasing interest among policy

makers, academia and practitioners, in
promoting entrepreneurship. The interest stems
from the recognition that entrepreneurship can
foster economic progress. It has resulted in the
development of more proactive technology
transfer policies of the Government. In order to
identify,
encourage
and
nurture
the
entrepreneurial spirit and to create new opportunities, the College has set up the Bhau Institute of
Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Leadership (BIEL), with the help of some of its alumni who have
committed Rs 4 crore to the institute. BIEL assists in identifying nascent technologies and intellectual
property and helps to open up avenues for seed capital and funding for the prospective entrepreneur.
The first success story, even before the formal infrastructure of the business incubator was ready,
was a mobile app company Refocus Lab started by second year B.Tech students that won the
Best Startup Blackberry Challenge Award in Hong Kong in 2013. Another startup, Robo Lab
Technologies has been set up by 6 students, graduates of the class of 2013, who declined highpaying job offers to do so. The entrepreneurial spirit is slowly but surely taking root at CoEP.
Bhau Institute also conducts a special programme called Ignited Innovators of India every year
through which social entrepreneurship is encouraged and supported. More than 200 projects have
been funded every year for the last 4 years. The entire activity is sponsored by Eaton.
The college provides up to Rs 50,000 as support to teams that would like to apply for patents. CoEP
has applied for thirty nine Indian patents so far and has obtained seven already. CoEP allows the
students to try and commercialise these patents, thus contributing towards cultivating the next
generation of entrepreneurs.
The National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB),

Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, has recently sanctioned an Innovation
and Entrepreneurship Development Centre (IEDC) at CoEP.
The BHAU Institute building of about 21,000 sq ft is being built on the CoEP campus near the Boat Club
3.5.5. C O M M UN I TY E N G A G E M E N T
CoEP believes strongly in the maxim that the purpose of education is fully realised only when the
learning is put to use to help the community and society. The College is ensuring the involvement of
students and faculty with the community and with society through multiple channels:
a. Students and alumni have formed a social action group called Spandan which is now registered
as an NGO. It takes up various social initiatives like blood donation camps, visiting remand
homes and blind schools, providing education to the under-privileged, helping students prepare
for job interviews, cleaning the rivers flowing beside the college, collection and safe disposal of
Nirmalya during Ganesh Visarjana and of e-waste, among others.
b. CoEP organises Jal Maitri Yatra (journey of friendship with river) each year, in association with
other organisations, to create awareness of water pollution related issues and to clean the twin
Mula-Mutha rivers. The college has partnered with National Technological University (NTU),
Singapore, to develop innovative technologies to clean the rivers.
c. CoEP was the only engineering College in India that was selected for an innovative Wikipedia
India Education Programme under which students are given assignments by the faculty to edit
the contents of Wikipedia to either add new material or new topics - and earn marks if the work
is considered acceptable by the world community. The College also received an e-learning award
for this initiative.
d. CoEP is probably the only institute which has declared its plant wealth, having enumerated all
the trees on the campus with common and biological names, size and age and published them
on the institute website.
e. CoEP students are engaged with the Pune Traffic Police to provide solutions to the traffic
problems in the city.
68
69
f.
Students have also developed a bomb detection and disposal robot to help the Police
department.
g. The college also has a strong NSS (National Social Service) cell that organises visits to villages
and conducts annual camps.
h. Activities of professional societies such as IEEE, IE, IETE, SAE, IIPM, ASM, ISHRAE, IIM are
held regularly with a view to engage in technologies that are helpful to society.
i.
For outreach, CoEP also networks with other institutes and conducts many short-term courses
that are open to civil society members. Continuing Education Programmes on subjects like
Embedded systems, Control Engineering, MATLAB, Turbo machines and Pumps, Image and
Signal Processing, Noise Vibration and Harshness, etc., are held on a regular basis.
j.
A very distinguished alumnus of CoEP, Professor Thomas Kailath of Stanford University, has
donated USD 100,000 to the college for engaging in socially relevant projects.
3.6.
Critical contributions from Stakeholders
The transformation of CoEP would not have been possible without the enthusiastic and extremely
valuable contribution of all groups of stakeholders. We review some of these contributions in this
section so as to highlight similar contributions that will be required at the 100 chosen colleges.
3.6.1. S T AT E G O VE RN M E N T
OF
M A HA R AS HT R A A M I X E D B A G
CoEP will always owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Mr Dilip Walse Patil, who was the Minister
for Higher and Technical Education. Mr Patil did the best possible thing that the State Government
could have done at the time. He granted complete autonomy to CoEP, invited Dr Kohli to take over
as Chairman of the Board of Governors 61 , set up a stellar Board of Governors for CoEP in
consultation with Dr Kohli, assured CoEP of keeping the funding support to the college intact and
then stepped back and let the college take over. In doing this he set an extremely healthy precedent
for the relationship between the college and the State government, which successive education
ministers have largely respected and preserved. The late Mrs. Kumud Bansal who was then
Additional Secretary, Department of Higher and Technical Education in 2003, played a very positive
role in bringing autonomy to CoEP and in guiding the college during the early years.
The State government accepted the suggestion of the BoG of CoEP that they be allowed to decide
how to use the land and buildings, which are the property of the State government, optimally and to
make changes to the buildings and surrounding area as needed. This freedom enabled the Board
to engage a renowned architect, Prof Benninger, and entrust him with the re-development plan of
61
Mr Patil invited Dr Kohli to become Chairman of the Board of all four colleges, but Dr Kohli chose to mentor just CoEP
making way for equally illustrious people to take charge of the other three institutions.
the historic college campus. The State Government also contributed generous funds to the
implementation of this plan.
It is unfortunate therefore that the government has recently (as of 2012) ruined its excellent track
record by withdrawing CoEPs privileges of recruiting its own faculty. In response to a PIL filed by a
Gazetted Faculty Organisation GoM has reverted to controlling the induction of faculty at CoEP. The
right to hire their own faculty is one of the most critical freedoms associated with autonomy that
is available to any College and ought never to have been touched. The college is now forced to hire
faculty on contract, a practice that is unsustainable in the long run. The government has also been
transferring relatively unqualified staff from other institutes into CoEP, which is also a threat to the
ongoing turnaround at the College.
It is also a pity that large tracts of land in front of the historic main building have been taken away for
road widening, without adequate attention being paid to aesthetics and to the continuity of the
campus on both sides of the road. An alternative proposal to take the traffic underground, suggested
and fully detailed by the Civil Engineering department of the college, was rejected citing higher costs.
It is important that governments are more sensitive to aesthetics and dont always count costs
when such old and historical colleges are involved. It is to be hoped that sufficient provisions will be
made to ensure a noise-free environment for CoEP when the construction is completed.
3.6.2. B O A RD
OF
G O V E RN O R S E X E M PL A RY L E AD E RS HI P
Dr Kohlis chairmanship of the Board of Governors of CoEP has unquestionably been the driving
force behind the remarkable turnaround of the college. One of his most important contributions
has been to bring about a change in the mind-set among the faculty and to inspire them to step
up to the challenge. The rest has followed. Even today, Dr Kohli spends many hours interacting
one-to-one with the faculty, reserving the rest of the day after every Board meeting for these
interactions, egging them to do better and to do more.
After more than a decade of being at the helm of affairs at CoEP, Dr Kohli is still full of ideas regarding
new initiatives that can be undertaken at CoEP and at other engineering colleges around the country.
Although many people believe that his kind of commitment and leadership skills will be hard to
replicate, Dr Kohli himself is very upbeat and believes that it is just a matter of searching hard
enough to find the public personalities in the country who are committed to quality education.
The active participation of all members of the BoG has also contributed enormously to the
transformation of CoEP. Dr Kohlis idea of requesting each Board member to give 100 hours a year,
to take charge of an activity and spend an average of 2 hours per week working on it while also
involving the college faculty and staff in the activity, was a brilliant move. It brought not just the
extensive experience of the eminent Board members to bear on dealing with the challenges facing
the college but also contributed to simultaneously building capacity within the college which is
valuable and has a longer term benefit. This is a practice that deserves to be replicated widely and
70
71
made a benchmark for the selection and involvement of Board members 62 at all educational
institutions. Meanwhile 100 hours a year has become a slogan and a benchmark for commitment
and contribution, with the Prime Minister urging citizens to contribute towards cleanliness63 and
the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
A very successful practice that has been used to extreme advantage by colleges and universities in
the US is that of turning over the management of their institutions to alumni. While investigating the
dominance of US Universities in the higher education space and in particular Why Harvard is always
#1, Prof Shailendra Mehta of IIM Ahmedabad (Mehta 2012) points out, in an extremely interesting
discussion paper64, that one of the key innovations Harvard pioneered is alumni control when
it turned the college over formally to its alumni as far back as in 1865. Harvard quickly rose to
prominence thereafter and many other colleges and universities copied the model of alumni control.
Prof Mehta points out that 19 of the top 20 Universities in the US are also alumni controlled and that
the concept can even be extended to the top 100 universities. The greater the degree of alumni
control, as defined by the percentage of alumni on the Board of Trustees, the higher the endowment,
the higher the selectivity and higher the rank of the University in question. By putting control in the
hands of those who value it the most, namely the alumni, the institutions ensure that they have
access to funds to maintain excellence and a large degree of insulation from political interference.
Very importantly, alumni are also able to take a view of the institution that is independent of the
interests of the promoters as well as that of the faculty. Indian institutions cannot emulate this
practice but they can seek the involvement of alumni to the degree possible.
The choice of Director for the college is another critical factor underpinning its success. Dr Kohli put
in careful effort into selecting one for CoEP, scouting for the right candidate from among faculty at
the IITs. He recounts his difficulties working with the two previous Directors at CoEP, emphasising
that it is the team, the Director and the BoG that must be able to work well together. This is not
always easy to achieve, but since it is critical to success the effort must be made.
ORF Comment
Although it would be difficult to replicate the same kind of dream team in every institution,
it is not impossible. Also, a lot can be learnt from the knowhow generated at CoEP making
it easier for other Boards to deliver.
62
TEQIP is attempting to do this http://www.teqipgoodgovernance.in/good-practice-guide-governing-bodies.html

December 2014
63 http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/netas-broom-it-up-for-swachch-bharat/article1-1268452.aspx September
2014
64The authors would like to thank Dr R.A. Mashelkar for drawing our attention to this paper.
3.6.3. IIT B O M B AY M E N TO RI N G
AN D
B E S T P R AC T I CE S
The involvement of IIT Bombay has been indispensable to the successful transformation of the
quality of academics at CoEP. IITB did not just share its curriculum their faculty put in many hours
to assist CoEP with capacity building of their faculty, for delivering the IITB curriculum, and with
revamping their various laboratories. Again, it was Dr Kohli who requested for and received the
support of Dr Ashok Misra, then Director of IIT Bombay, and the faculty. The enthusiasm with which
Dr R. K. Shevgaonkar, founder and head of C-DEEP (Centre for Distance Engineering Education
Programme) at IITB and presently Director of IIT Delhi, agreed to make it possible to share live
lectures from IITB is highly appreciated by Dr Kohli and CoEP.
Dr Shevgaonkar also volunteered to teach at CoEP during his stint as Vice Chancellor of Pune
University during 2010-11. He taught for 3 semesters at CoEP, which is an extremely rare
phenomenon a sitting Vice Chancellor teaching at an affiliated college. I love to teach says Dr
Shevgaonkar who has been decorated for his teaching skills65. As a VC I was only able to teach
very early in the morning before my working day at the university began. Once CoEP adjusted the
time-table to suit my constraints, I was delighted to have the opportunity to be in a classroom
among eager students. Needless to say, the impact and ripple effects of his action were enormous,
on faculty, staff and students at CoEP and at Pune University as well.
The use of videoconferencing
equipment to share courses
I love to teach. As a VC I was only able
between IITB and CoEP through
to teach very early in the morning
live lectures transmitted over a
dedicated network, beginning in
before my working day at the university
2007, was an early experiment in
began. Once CoEP adjusted the timementoring by the IITs that helped
table to suit my constraints, I was
to establish some critical value
delighted to have the opportunity to be
propositions with regard to this
in a classroom among eager students.
model of online learning 66 . The
~ DR R.M. SHEVGAONKAR,
live lectures and interactive
DIRECTOR, IIT DELHI
question and answer sessions
were found to be most effective for
CoEP students when they were supported by local CoEP faculty. This also gave the local faculty
some much needed time, guidance and support for getting ready to teach these courses themselves.
Students also benefited from the expert lectures and interactivity with IIT faculty.
Scaling this kind of mentoring model will however be fairly challenging. Every autonomous college
will require similar assistance from a mentor institution so the requirement for mentoring is likely to
be substantial. Online education can play an extremely important enabling role, but some
65
http://iitbombay.org/iitb_dean_acr/iitb_dean_acr/november-newsletter/prof.-raghunath-k.-shevgaonkar-inspirational
66 See http://pilot.edureform.iitm.ac.in/home.html for a recent pilot conducted at scale on the same principles. Accessed
December 2014
72
73
ingenuity and planning will be required in order to experiment with models of online education
that are different from the point-to-point, direct, transmission of live lectures that was done
between IITB and CoEP. The National Knowledge Network (NKN) is connecting many educational
institutions to a high speed national backbone and with many DTH channels slated to be available
for education, it should be possible to share live lectures with multiple institutions simultaneously.
Since we did not change our time-table at all there is no additional effort involved for IITB to
scale these live lectures to multiple institutions, says Dr Ashok Misra. The only change at our
end was that these courses that needed to be shared were taught in the studio a location change
that was relatively simple to implement says Dr Shevgaonkar.
3.6.4. TEQIP F U N D I N G
AN D
G O VE RN AN C E
S U P PO R T
CoEP was selected as a lead institute under TEQIP-Phase-1 (MHRD 2002), through a nationally
competitive selection procedure held in 2003. The funding and governance support from the TEQIP
programmes have played a crucial role in elevating the quality of infrastructure, in building up
capacity and in improving governance at CoEP.
TEQIP Phase-I had the following objectives67:
Promotion of Academic Excellence at undergraduate level;
Networking of institutions for quality enhancement and resource sharing;
Enhancing quality and reach of services to Community and Economy;
System Management Capacity Improvement.
These were all extremely well thought out and complementary goals and funds were earmarked for
each activity at the college. For instance the goal of promotion of academic excellence included
separate funding for faculty development programmes, upgrade of infrastructure and other related
activities. CoEP was networked with five other institutes VIT Pune, RIT Sakharale, BATU Lonere,
GCOE Aurangabad and Government Polytechnic Pune so that they could all work together to
organise programmes jointly, take up joint PhDs and joint research projects etc. Best practices
from India and abroad were collated and made mandatory, and assistance was provided to the
institutes to build capacity towards fulfilling the goals of the programme. TEQIPs support to CoEP
was three fold:
1. F U N D I N G The TEQIP programme funded CoEP to the extent of Rs 25 crore, covering

different sets of requirements Rs 12.5 crore for equipment, Rs 1.5 crore for faculty
development, and the remaining for infrastructure, library, development and networking
activities. This directed infusion of funds was critical to getting a head start at post-autonomy
activities in CoEP. What is especially significant in the case of CoEP is that all these activities
67See
http://www.aicte-india.org/teqip.php accessed December 2014
are being sustained from the colleges own resources, even after the TEQIP project was
completed.
2. M E N T O R I N G Reputed academics or industry experts were assigned as mentors to each
institution. Mentors were expected to interact regularly with stake holders from the institute to
continuously raise the bar and help the institute take all necessary steps to improve their overall
system, and consequently their TEQIP scores, from one audit to the next.
3. A U D I T I N G This was done on two fronts. The first was based on factual data explicitly sought
for and verified by the auditor. The second was based on perceptions gathered by the auditor in
one-to-one interactions with stake holders industry, faculty, students and alumni. If there was
a large variation in the two sets of scores then moderation was done by the auditor in the next
round. Although the data sought for had to be assembled from multiple sources and each audit
was fairly onerous in the initial stages,
the exercise itself was extremely useful
The accolade for the best achievement of TEQIP
for the discipline it brought to all
however, must undoubtedly be reserved for
stakeholders in the college. The data that
recognising the importance of, and requesting for,
was retrieved provided the necessary
complete autonomy to CoEP and other selected
inputs for timely measurements, checks,
TEQIP institutes, and for assisting them to make
and planning for next steps. The
use of autonomy with funding and governance
parameters required by the TEQIP audits
support.
have now been put together by the
college into an MIS system that has been
made available across institutions for reporting and analysis.
As mentioned earlier CoEPs TEQIP score went up from just 5 in 2005 up to 9.5 in 2009. Apart from
facilitating infrastructural upgrades and the professional development of faculty, TEQIPs measures
towards the overall development of an institution promoted communication and collaborative projects
across departments and institutions, out-of-the-box thinking, research and innovation. The accolade
for the best achievement of TEQIP however, must undoubtedly be reserved for recognising the
importance of, and requesting for, complete autonomy to CoEP and all other selected institutes,
and for also assisting them to make use of autonomy with funding and governance support. When
combined with the outstanding internal effort put in by all stake holders in CoEP, it has produced
results that the college can justifiably be proud of.
It is important to mention here that although TEQIP is an excellent programme, it has had varying
degrees of success in the different colleges around the country. The main factor that contributed to
this variation is that many TEQIP institutions did not receive complete and genuine autonomy despite
the commitment to do so by the respective state governments. The four institutions in Maharashtra
were alone in receiving complete and genuine autonomy from GoM from the very beginning, as an
experiment, and this can be attributed to the spadework done by the committee headed by Dr Kohli.
Other colleges that received autonomy later saw many variations in the freedoms they received, and
it is unclear if the experiment was ever reviewed by the Maharashtra government.
74
75
CoEP has also been selected to the second phase of the TEQIP project and has been granted
Rs.12.5 crore for scaling up postgraduate education and research, development and innovation, and
also for creating centres of excellence. One of the focus areas of TEQIP Phase-2 (MHRD 2009) is
good governance as a vehicle to improve quality of education. This effort is primarily directed
towards improving the role of the Board of Governors of autonomous colleges. For this TEQIP has
been studying the activities of the BoG of CoEP and also of B.V.B College of Engineering and
Technology, Hubli, in depth. Their observations will become part of the best practices and
recommendations, contextualised for India that will go into their handbook. The latter currently
contains data primarily from the UK (Blom, Linden and Digraskar 2012). For now these have been
showcased through the TEQIP good governance website68.
3.6.5. F A C UL TY I N I TI A TI VE S D E L I V E RI N G
O N THE
PROMISE
The faculty have been the largest contributors, besides being the largest beneficiaries of the
transformation at CoEP. This was only to be expected given that any vibrant centre of learning relies
on their faculty to create the
environment of scholarship
We have worked very hard for a very long time
and innovation that students
but we are also enjoying ourselves.
can thrive under.
~ DR A.M. SAPKAL
The freedom to decide what
HOD,
to teach and how to teach,
DEPT. OF ELECTRONICS & TELECOMMUNICATIONS
and the freedom to evaluate
students, are fundamental
freedoms critically important
to every teacher. We have deprived our faculty of these freedoms for several decades. Autonomy
provides faculty with the opportunity to be back in charge again. It also provides them with the
opportunities to enrich and empower themselves, and to rise to societys expectations from them.
Indeed, the spirit of autonomy seeks just that voluntary contributions from faculty towards creating
new knowledge and towards shaping the minds and hearts of students, inspiring them and bringing
out the best in them.
In the nurturing environment of CoEP, free from the worry of getting transferred at short notice,
faculty have dug their heels in, created modern laboratories for conducting research, strengthened
themselves through collaborations and external exposure, and have begun to live up to the
expectations from them with regard to quality education delivery, research and innovation. We have
worked very hard for a very long time but we are also enjoying ourselves, says Dr Sapkal, Head,
Electronics and Telecommunication Department. Faculty have been excelling in their primary task
of teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students, as evidenced by student performance and
feedback. They have also been bringing in funds through consultancy, sponsored research projects
and short-term courses. Most importantly, faculty have worked out a generalised and transparent
framework for their own evaluation, for career advancement purposes. This framework goes well
68
http://www.teqipgoodgovernance.in/ accessed December 2014
beyond the excessive focus on research publications that is otherwise prevalent today. It is also
being reviewed continuously for improvement.
Many faculty members have volunteered to
work with students to explore areas of mutual
Faculty are looking for mainly two things from
interest, outside of the regular curriculum, as in
their managements freedom and respect
the new liberal learning courses that have been
~ DR R.M. SHEVGAONKAR
started at CoEP. Summer courses for weaker
students is another activity in which faculty
have come forward to assist students to overcome the deficiencies in their previous training, be it in
English, communication skills or in the basics of science and engineering. Faculty routinely give up
vacation time to take turns to conduct the requisite courses each summer, based on prior analysis
of the needs of students. As Dr Shevgaonkar says, Faculty are looking for mainly two things from
their managements freedom and respect. The faculty at CoEP have plenty of both and they are
giving back to the college in equal measure.
T OW A RD S C O NT INU IN G E D U C A T I ON
AND
S KI L L D E V E L O PM E NT
As mentioned earlier, faculty have been running successful CEP Programmes on a wide variety of
topics. These are evening courses, conducted for periods ranging from 1 to 8 weeks on topics that
the faculty are experts in. Sample topics include Corrosion and Surface Engineering, Nano-materials
and Nano-composites, Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD-CAM), Embedded Linux,
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP-SAP), Mechatronics and many others. There is also a course
on Plumbing Construction Management which runs for over 100 days at the state-of-the-art
Plumbing lab that has been constructed at CoEP through the involvement of the Indian Plumbing
Association and some Alumni. All these courses are always full and often oversubscribed, indicating
the latent demand.
Since faculty members are allowed to retain 75-80% of the income from such courses, very generous
relative to prevailing norms in the rest of the country, the number of such courses is proliferating,
creating a win-win situation for everyone concerned. Students have access to additional courses of
interest, faculty members get to teach courses they enjoy and earn additional income, and the
college benefits in terms of income as well as reputation. As of now there are 17 different courses
being offered under the CEP banner, many of which have been taught in multiple editions.
The positive experience of CoEP with running the CEP shows that colleges, particularly
engineering colleges, can be among the foremost centres for skill development in the country.
The physical infrastructure of laboratories, classrooms, library, canteens etc., and the human capital
of willing faculty can come together in a powerful combination to take on the onerous challenge of
skill development to provide diplomas, advanced diplomas and Bachelors degree as per UGC
Guidelines69. The model is well worth scaling out for the mutual benefit of all parties concerned the
students, their current and prospective employers, the faculty and the institution.
69UGC
guidelines for vocational education at universities and colleges under National Skill Qualification framework
(NSQF) http://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/8508026_Guidelines-on-B-Voc_Final.pdf accessed December 2014
76
77
3.6.6. A L U M N I S U P PO R T N U R TU RI N G
W I TH
P RI D E
Alumni have the highest stake in upholding the reputation of their alma maters and as such, many
of them are very happy to assist their colleges in any way they can. In the past, Indian colleges
have done little to tap into their alumni networks. CoEP, given its long and illustrious history, boasts
of many very influential alumni. The concerted efforts to connect with them, post receiving autonomy,
have produced excellent results. Besides serving on the Board of Governors, alumni at CoEP have
helped initiate new programmes, provided generous donations, and associated their companies/
institutions with CoEP either formally or informally, to create many new opportunities for
students. A partial list of activities that have been launched at CoEP with alumni assistance include:
Endowments for Chair Professorships;
Elective courses offered by alumni in an online interactive mode on the WebGuru platform;
Special lectures delivered by Alumni;
Mentorship and counselling of groups of students by Alumni for internships, projects,
competitions etc.;
Techno-Craft Booth competition in this competition, ten teams consisting of approximately
twenty students, each guided by alumni, work together to build a model/ booth based on a
central theme. Some examples of such themes include desalination of sea water, creating a
walking mobile charger and so on;
Extensive support for the Robotics and other clubs;
Extremely generous donations for special activities such as setting up of a cleanroom, an
anechoic chamber, the Nvidia lab and the renovation of mechanical engineering department
among many others;
Student fraternities have been created that host many alumni events like homecoming,
networking get-togethers and annual functions. These not only allow alumni to interact with
the undergraduates but also faculty members to form lasting bonds with their students;
The countrys first plumbing lab was set up in CoEP, with different plumbing systems and
working models with the support of Subhash Deshpande, alumnus and trustee of the Indian
Plumbing Association70. This is a significant first step and the model has the potential to scale.
Similar activities can be started at other engineering colleges to train students, not just in the
area of plumbing but also in different skillsets;
The Bhau Institute of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Leadership which provides a
unique opportunity for students to innovate, incubate and become entrepreneurs, is one of
70
Plumbing Laboratory set up by IPA at CoEP, see http://www.indianplumbing.org/plumbing_lab.htm accessed

December 2014
the biggest initiatives of the alumni so far with significant contributions from Narendra Kale,
Sanjay Inamdar, Atul Kirloskar and Nickhil Jakatdar.
Although these programmes are ongoing and successful, there are innumerable other opportunities
that are as yet untapped. The college has made the effort to encourage further participation by
introducing a formal event the Annual Global Alumni meet beginning October 2008, which has
met with excellent response.
3.6.7. I N D US T RY
AN D I N S TI T U TI O N AL
P AR TN E RS HI PS C RE A TI N G
NEW
O P PO R T UN I TI E S
CoEPs partnerships with industry and with other institutions in India and abroad have created myriad
opportunities for students and faculty for collaborative research on specific topics, for training, for
faculty and student exchanges and for entrepreneurial activity. CoEP has initiated many
collaborative programmes that seek to strengthen these mutually beneficial partnerships. There are
several programmes that are currently on-going, with support from industry (Table 13) and
institutions (Table 14). Although some of these opportunities have come through alumni there are
several others, for example Eaton and TCS, where no alumnus is involved. The opportunity has
been created as a result of industry seeing value in working with CoEP. All these partnerships have
lived up to the expectations from them in every way.
T ABLE 13: MOU S
WITH I NDUSTRY
(P ARTIAL L IST )
Organisation
Key areas being addressed
Aspiring Minds
Assessment tests for students
Association Of Indian Forging

Industry (AIFI)
Introduce necessary curricula changes as proposed between the

parties to start various courses such as graduation with forging as
elective subject, certificate course in Forging Technology, postgraduation in Forging Technology, etc.
BSNL
Digital telephone exchange
Cognizant Technology
Solutions
Research Laboratory is an advanced state-of-the-art industryinterface-university setup in the areas of training and research and
development.
They have also set up an Innovation Lab.
Cranes Software International

Limited, Bangalore
Teaching/Research Lab facility using ASLK Starter Kits at CoEP
Eaton
Ecosan Service Foundation
EdGate Technologies Pvt
Limited
Emerson
I2I Social Entrepreneurship Support and projects.

Corrosion laboratory.
Indo-European collaborative research project Natural Water Systems
and Treatment Technologies (NawaTech) supported by Department
of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India.
Teaching Lab facility in the area of Embedded systems titled Texas
Instruments Embedded Systems Lab in Electrical Engineering
Department
Automation laboratory
78
79
Organisation
Key areas being addressed
Forbes Marshall
Steam technology laboratory
Force Motors Limited
Chief Sponsor for Team Nemesis at BAJA 2013
IBM
Cloud Computing and Storage devices
IFM Electronic
Indian Plumbing Association
To give learning opportunities to students on the latest

instrumentation, control and image processing technologies and carry
out research
Helped setting up state of the art Plumbing laboratory
Running courses for civil engineers, plumbing contractors and
technicians
Indian Space Research

Organisation (ISRO)
To support the design , development and launch of Swayam
John Deere
Projects for mechanical, metallurgy and computer departments
Kirloskar Brothers Ltd
Certificate course on Turbo machinery of six month duration
Kirloskar Oil Engines
Internal combustion Engine Laboratory
L&T
Switch gear laboratory
Mayur Renergy Solutions Pvt

Ltd
To work together on research and commercialisation of different

products and solutions which will use fuel cells, solar, wind, biogas
etc. to provide a 24x7 green, affordable power to the country.
Neilsoft
Tackling employability issues soft skills and pride in engineering

profession
Nvidia
GPU lab hardware and software
Patni Computer Systems

Limited
To established a common platform between the Institute and iGATE

for the student to get trained under close industry expert guidance
during and even after the academic tenure
SAS R&D India (Pvt.) Ltd
For research services / joint projects to be performed by students for

SAS
Tata Elxsi Ltd
Embedded system design
Tata Motors
Research and Development Projects
Tata Steel
Wire lab
Tata Communications Ltd

(TCL)
Remedial Coaching, Sustenance Support Scholarships to SC/ST

students
TCS
Soft skills training and faculty empowerment,

Developing vision, mission and goals for the institute
Faculty student awards, research projects
The Financial Engineering

Company (FinIQ)
Sponsor for Regatta and Computer-IT Department magazine
CoEP is also a member of associations such as IUCEE Consortium, CII and Mahratta Chamber of
Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA).
I NTE RN SH IP S
Perhaps the most valuable of the different opportunities that students can get are internships. These
enable students to get real world work experience that contributes to making them far more
employable than they otherwise would be. In the words of Board Member Maitreya Doshi, CMD,
Premier Ltd., Students from CoEP are not employable when they first come to us for internships.
They become employable after they have completed their internships during which time they
have worked on the shop floor, dealt with real world situations, interacted closely with senior
management and contributed to getting the job done, all of which helps to develop their
confidence. Getting real world work experience alongside their studies is indeed the secret of the
success of students from the developed world. It is imperative that colleges in India make more
serious efforts to ensure that all their students get as much internship experience as possible through
their partnerships. This is easier said than done however. One practical requirement would be that
academic calendars are adjusted to make room for these internships. Presently the length of the
summer break in colleges is very variable and the dates fairly unpredictable. Academic calendars
must be announced in advance and adhered to so that internships can be planned ahead of time.
CoEP has been able to do this, but affiliated colleges are forced to deal with the vagaries of the
universities and the state governments, with respect to conduct of examinations, announcement of
results, dates for admissions etc.
T ABLE 14: MOU S
No.
WITH I NSTITUTIONS
(P ARTIAL L IST )
Institution
Key areas of partnership
MIT, USA
Media Lab for setting the Fab Lab
Ontario University, Canada
The Ontario Maharashtra Goa Student Exchange

Program
Ostfalia Hochschule fr angewandte

Wissenschaften, Germany
Under DAAD for student and faculty exchange
University of Calgary, Canada
Starting of PG programmes in collaboration with the

University
University of Alabama, Birmingham
M.Tech in automotive technology
University of Illinois
Application of IT in Water Resources,

Course in Biology
NTU, Singapore
River cleaning, student exchange
Illinois Institute of Technology
For student and faculty exchange,

joint research collaborations
80
81
No.
Institution
Key areas of partnership
Tennesse Technological University
For student and faculty exchange and M.Tech in

automotive technology
10
St. Bonaventure University, Buffalo
For student and faculty exchange
11
Purdue University
12
Seneca College of Applied Arts and

Technology (Seneca) Toronto, Canada
13
Tottori University, Japan
14
Fachhochschule Nordhausen, University

of Applied Sciences
15
Fachhochschule Braunschweig/
Wolfenbuettel, University of Applied
Science, Germany
MOU renewed For student and faculty exchange
16
Kunsan National University South Korea
17
Colorado State University
For setting up first open source 3D printing lab in

India along with Geometric Software
18
Ulsan College , Korea and Hyundai

Construction Equipment India Pvt Ltd.
Exchange of students, employment cooperation, joint

research activities and publication, special short term
academic programme
U ND E R G RA D U A TE R E SE A RC H
The value of undergraduate research opportunities for young engineers cannot be overstated. They
provide students with extremely useful experience of the process of creation of new knowledge that
prepares them better for their career choices, either in academia or in industry. The partnerships
with industry and the collaborative research projects that result can give important exposure to
students, provided some careful planning of the undergraduate projects are done. One important
success of the IIT system has been the dual-degree programmes where the student spends 5-years
and leaves with a Bachelors as well as a Masters degree. The important thing about this opportunity
is that the student can spend a year or more researching a topic, something that is more productive
for the student as well as the faculty member concerned. CoEP hopes to start such courses once it
becomes a Deemed University.
3.6.8. S TU D E N T C O N TRI B U TI O N S E N E R GY
AN D
V E RVE
Students at CoEP have been quick to embrace the multitude of opportunities that have become
available to them. Their energy and verve towards making the best of every new opportunity has
helped them move from strength to strength. The accolades that have come their way are but a
small window into the hive of activity that CoEP has now become. From activities related to
academics such as the design of the pico-satellite, the successful participation in several robotics
contests and the dominance of the Baja competitions in India and abroad to theatre festivals such
as Firodia Karandak, sports competitions and the annual Regatta; from entrepreneurship
opportunities to community engagement; students are learning by doing all the time, a dream
scenario in the present Indian context. Having access to adequate funds and guidance from mentors
through the many clubs, and the advantages of being a residential school are some of the other
factors that contribute to the plethora of activities that go on in the college. Students are responding
to the empowering environment they find themselves in by coming forward, either as individuals or
in groups, to start new activities on the campus.
Students are taking more initiative than ever, says Dr Sahasrabudhe. They are always coming
up with ideas for new activities that can be conducted at CoEP. For instance, Model United Nations
was not an activity that we had at CoEP. This year, a first year student came up to me and asked
to be allowed to run one, so for the first time in 2013 we had a Model United Nations at CoEP. He
organised everything on his own, with his classmates and seniors helping him. The students loved
it, so I am sure it will become a regular event at CoEP now.
3.7.
Challenges still Ahead
Perhaps the greatest challenge facing CoEP at the moment is the progressive loss of autonomy with
regard to faculty recruitment. Prior to autonomy, staff recruitment was completely under the purview
of the Maharashtra State Public Service Commission (MPSC), and due to lack of focused effort, only
100 positions out of the 233 sanctioned posts were filled. The recruitment process at CoEP got a
fillip under autonomy, because the College got complete charge of recruiting their own faculty.
Through determined efforts by the management and faculty of the college, which are still ongoing,
the faculty strength has improved to 207. The current faculty-student ratio stands at 1:14.5. Industry
experts, Emeritus professors, and experts from other colleges in India and abroad are also invited
to lecture in the college to make up for the shortfall and to introduce special courses.
However, this freedom has been withdrawn for many months now. Government of Maharashtra
reverted to controlling the process of faculty recruitment as of October 2012 in response to a petition
filed by a Gazetted Faculty Organisation, claiming violations in the rules and regulations laid down
by the State government with respect to hiring of faculty at CoEP between 2007 and 2011. Whereas
COEP was advertising and recruiting faculty to fill vacancies every year and sometimes even twice
a year, the MPSC does not process recruitment of faculty for years, sometimes even for a decade
82
83
or longer. The Government ought to have allowed the College to continue with their recruitment
system instead, till such time as the litigation was dealt with by the High Court.
Although the High Court pronounced judgement in November 2013, wisely leaving it to the
government to look into the merit of the claim by the petitioners, the Government has not yet returned
the freedom of faculty recruitment to the College. Unfortunately, therefore, new faculty are only being
hired in contract positions a move that has slowed down the pace of recruitment at CoEP. This is
particularly hard coming at a time when the College is trying to attain its stated goal of a faculty to
student ratio of 1:12 and 1:9 at the earliest (Table 2). Interestingly, the High Court chose to uphold
the right of the State Government to intervene - To our mind, it is therefore plain and clear that
the government retains such control as is requisite and necessary as to ensure quality education
even after the autonomy is granted to the College of Engineering Pune establishing that the
courts too do not understand the true spirit of autonomy.
Deemed University Status A pressing need: CoEP is yet to receive the status of a Deemed
University despite having applied for it over three years ago due to the recent difficulties with some
private deemed universities. The past and present Vice Chancellors of Pune University, Dr Narendra
Jadhav, Prof R.K. Shevgaonkar, Prof W.N. Gade have all taken note of CoEPs achievements and
applauded them. They had also committed to support the college for the status of Deemed University
but it is only very recently that Pune University has finally issued the requisite No Objection
Certificate (NOC). The NOC from GoM was received some time earlier, so the college is now back
to pursuing the status with UGC.
College of Engineering, Pune An IIT-like institution today
ORF Recommendations
4. ORF R ECOMMENDATIONS
In the words of Dr R.A. Mashelkar The drive to improve and excel often comes from scarcity and
aspiration. With unshaken focus and determination, CoEP has used autonomy to rise from the
ashes like a phoenix. Its success illustrates that
autonomy can indeed be made to work for the
The drive to improve and
benefit of all stakeholders in colleges. Given that
excel often comes from
its transformation is very recent and was achieved
scarcity and aspiration.
in a relatively short period, we now have a
With unshaken focus and
template that can be used as the basis for the
determination, CoEP has
transformation of many more colleges. It is
used autonomy toused
rise from the ashes like a
imperative that many engineering as well as nonphoenix.
engineering colleges embrace autonomy, draw
~ DR R A MASHELKAR
inspiration and learn from CoEPs achievement,
P
RESIDENT, GLOBAL RESEARCH ALLIANCE
and strive towards excellence. In this chapter we
list some key recommendations for regulatory and
governance reforms in higher education that must be taken up by the central and state governments
so as to ensure that the goal of transforming a hundred colleges can be achieved expeditiously.
First, however, we ask the following question:
I S C O EP
AN
IIT- LI KE I NS TI TU T I ON T OD A Y ? Y E S ,
IT I S !
The truth of the assertion that CoEP is an IIT-like institution today that it has indeed achieved many
of the goals that Dr Kohli had set out for it in 2004, soon after receiving autonomy can be seen
from the figures for the Return on Investment (RoI) for CoEP relative to the IITs given in Table 15
below.
T ABLE 15: R O I
ON
C O EP
RELATIVE TO THE
IIT S
FOR SOME KEY BENCHMARKS
Parameters
Average in IITs
CoEP
Area of the campus
400 - 500 acres
45 acres
Number of students
6,000 - 8,000
4,000
Number of faculty
450 - 550
200
Residential campus
100 %
50 % only for students
Annual Budget from Government
Rs 300 crores from GoI
Rs 30 crores from GoM
Fees
Rs 1 lakh per student
Rs 55,000 per student
Placement percentage
80 - 85 %
85-90 %
Average pay package
Rs 6.5 lakhs
Rs 5.5 lakhs
Students going for higher studies
15 - 20 %
10 - 15 %
Number of faculty with PhDs
100 %
50 %
84
85
Parameters
Average in IITs
CoEP
Publications per year in refereed

Journals and Conferences
900
250
Number of Patents per year
15 - 20
8 - 10
Number of PhDs produced per year
150 - 200
25 - 30
Number of Awards for faculty
10 - 15
4-5
Number of all India competitions in

which students participate and win
25 - 30
25 30
Sponsored R&D projects
Rs 100 crore
Rs 15 20 crore
These numbers, when combined with CoEPs favourable rankings relative to the IITs (Section 2.4.2),
and factoring in their careful and on-going efforts to monitor, self-assess and improve continuously,
show that CoEP has done a creditable job of moving towards parity with the IITs on several fronts,
despite some serious handicaps. Their focus on research and innovation is more recent so there is
a lot more catching-up to do there, but in terms of the mind-set, the preparedness, the desire and
the efforts to deliver IIT-like education one can safely say that CoEP has succeeded extremely well.
Their success is that much more significant when we remind ourselves of the fact that they are a
college affiliated to a State university and funded at considerably lower levels (just one tenth) than
the IITs.
CoEP and the IITs have several important things in common. The first would undoubtedly be their
proud heritage and the achievements of their alumni that set the bar for every batch of incoming
students. Faculty at CoEP have the freedom to design and administer new courses and revise the
content of existing courses through vastly simplified procedures, and they make judicious and
frequent use of this freedom just as their IIT counterparts. The involvement of IIT Bombay in their
transformation and the fact that Dr Sahasrabudhe was very familiar with the administrative and
governance processes at the IITs has ensured that these processes have now been adopted at
CoEP. The College has also introduced many additional processes that help simplify the day to day
administration, giving faculty more time to spend on education and research. Another key strength
is the opportunity for peer-learning among students because CoEP, like the IITs, is residential for
students.
Perhaps the best measure of the transformation at CoEP is the fact the college is dreaming big. It
has moved its sights away from the IITs and is today looking to MIT, USA, for inspiration! This is
indeed the best possible outcome that can be achieved in a time frame of 6-7 years, because it is
only a fraction of the time that the IITs have taken to establish themselves as a brand.
ORF Recommendations
4.1.
Essential reforms for promoting Excellence
We would therefore like to reiterate that the goal of scaling out the success of CoEP and creating
100 IIT-like institutions with similar goals and achievements is a completely attainable one. However,
achieving this goal will not be easy because CoEPs success was built on a delicate balance of many
contributions, all of which need to be brought together again for each of these chosen colleges.
This will require support from state governments, from MHRD and TEQIP, the regulating agencies
such as UGC and AICTE and the affiliating universities, to ensure that the selected colleges are not
halted at the first few steps of being given the right kind of autonomy, a stellar leadership and
adequate funding. The policy initiatives outlined here, if adopted, can help create the environment in
which many students can get the quality education they deserve.
It would be safe to say that the Central government has largely failed in the role entrusted to it
by the Constitution of India (item 66, Union list) of coordination and determination of standards
in institutions for higher education or research and scientific and technical institutions . Although
the bulk of the responsibility for the failure must lie with the UGC and AICTE, since they are the
statutory regulatory bodies that were created for this express purpose, the Government of India and
its various ministries, and all the other statutory regulatory agencies such as NCTE, NAAC, NBA,
the professional councils etc., carry equal responsibility. The State governments too have failed in
their primary responsibility of providing education (item 25, Concurrent list) and for this their
departments of higher and technical education, the state higher education councils, the
managements of universities and colleges, all faculty members and even students must share in the
blame. All stakeholders have contributed to the perpetration of an obviously flawed and mediocre
system.
What is urgently needed now is the political will to implement essential reforms that can completely
re-orient the delivery of higher education towards excellence, through the creation of a flexible
framework for governance and regulation that will allow active participation of academics and experts
in large numbers. Most of the reforms that are needed are well known. We need to find the will to
implement them with diligence and care.
ORF Mumbai had the opportunity to pose the following question to a number of sitting and former
Vice-Chancellors in the country What is the single most important thing that must be done for
education in India in todays circumstance? The answer was unhesitating and it was unanimous
Implement the recommendations of the Radhakrishnan Committee! (Radhakrishnan Committee
1950). This is a telling statement which accurately pinpoints our main weakness our inability to
implement recommendations of experts from as far back as 1950. Many of the urgently required
reforms that we outline below have also been recommended in one form or another by various expert
committees over the years.
86
87
4.1.1. G E N UI N E A U T O N O M Y
F O R M AN Y
G O O D C O L L E GE S
A T THE
E A RL I E S T
As envisaged by Dr Kohli, the 100 colleges selected for intervention must be those that receive
students who are bright and self-motivated, those who score more than 85% in their grade 12
examinations. Such colleges are likely to be among the best in their respective states and have
NBA accreditation for their programmes. They can be selected either directly or through the robust
selection processes of TEQIP.
The pre-condition for any intervention in these colleges must be the granting of complete and
genuine autonomy to each one of them, similar to what CoEP got. This is the most critical stumbling
block and the unfortunate experience of the TEQIP-I programme in which it was found that many of
the 127 chosen colleges were denied genuine autonomy indicates that resistance to the idea is
deep-rooted and difficult to dislodge in the minds of state governments and all other stakeholders
including managements of private colleges. The RUSA mission which is also making autonomy to
colleges a requirement is likely to meet the same fate unless the present government at the Centre
provides the vision and the leadership to finally reform this sector. It is worth reiterating that it was
Dr Kohlis efforts and his direct involvement with the GoM that resulted in the four Maharashtra
colleges including CoEP receiving genuine and complete autonomy. Unless this kind of autonomy,
which empowers the institution, is given to all the chosen colleges they will not be able to replicate
the success of CoEP.
At ORF Mumbai we believe that more than the flawed regulatory system or even the lack of
adequate funding over the past several decades, it is the perpetration of the affiliation system
that is the root cause for the proliferation of colleges offering education of dubious quality in the
country today. Affiliation has made it relatively easy for many groups of promoters in the private
sector, who are neither educationists nor philanthropists, to open affiliated colleges and to create
profitable family businesses out of running them safe in the knowledge that the bulk of the
responsibility for the quality of the academics will be shouldered by the parent university.
The affiliation system is also responsible for the mind-numbing uniformity in the scope of the
education that we provide to students today because it comes with a fair amount of rigidity in course
selection and the centralised exit examination system, which means that students study to the
examination. With each university affiliating hundreds of colleges, this one-size-fits-all model takes
neither the interests of the students nor the needs of the country into account. Although the UGC is
pushing for the widespread adoption of the choice-based credit system (CBCS), the latter has run
into implementation related difficulties at many universities.
Worst of all, affiliation and the centralised exit examination has helped to relegate faculty to the
periphery of the education system, demeaning the profession and contributing to its downward
spiral (Chandran-Wadia, Correia, et al. 2011). A comprehensive report of an expert committee of
the UGC, on reforming the affiliating system (Thyagarajan Committee 2011), has made many
important recommendations some of which are being incorporated into the RUSA mission. However,
there are many vested interests working to preserve status-quo, some in the name of maintaining
ORF Recommendations
minimum quality in education delivery and some citing lack of capacity within many colleges to strike
out on their own. Although there is some truth in both statements, dismantling the affiliation system
albeit in a careful and graded fashion is a must-do if Indian youth are to have any chance at all at
competing in this fast internationalising and highly competitive world. MHRD must use CABE as an
effective forum to persuade state governments to fall in line with the demands for genuine and
full autonomy as quickly as possible.
4.1.2. L E A D E RS H I P
AND
G O V E RN AN CE
RE F O R M S T O S TI M UL A TE I N N O V A TI O N
Each newly autonomous college will need to be given a stellar Board of Governors by the respective
State governments an eminent Chairman and members who are all committed to giving adequate
time and attention to the college. State governments must take this task very seriously so that every
college can get a head start with respect to reforms. This is not an easy task however, and the best
way is for governments to make a selection from a list of names provided by the faculty or the
Senate of the institution. The quantum of 2-hours per week, as a measure of the time commitment
of members of the Board of Governors, pioneered nearly a decade ago at CoEP by Dr Kohli, has by
now become a slogan and an often cited measure of citizen contribution to society in the government
of Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi. Many institutions will benefit enormously from the time and
expertise of their Board members during the turnaround phase.
The Management Boards (Executive Councils, Trust Boards etc.) of private engineering colleges
need to be reformed urgently. By and large most of them today are dominated by family members
of the promoters, who often run these colleges as profit centres despite their non-profit status. Since
this is a well-known fact, the regulators must overcome political considerations and specify norms
for the size and composition of these Boards, just as is done in corporate Boards, reserving at least
half of the places for eminent academics and industrialists who have an interest in education. The
experience from the efforts of the TEQIP-II project towards good governance shows that promoters
will be innovative about retaining control, but we must persist nevertheless.
Leadership and governance reforms will require paying more than lip service to quality. It will require
commitment to the true spirit of promoting excellence by the regulators, especially UGC and AICTE.
They have both lost the confidence of the nation due to allegations of inefficiency, corruption and a
complete lack of vision and awareness of their own critical role in the provision of quality education.
The recent activism of the UGC towards shutting down the 4-year under-graduate programme, one
of the few recent innovations in higher education from well-respected institutions such as IISc
Bangalore and Delhi University are a case in point. That UGC should choose to prioritise penalising
good institutions over regulating and weeding out poor quality institutions, which form the bulk of the
37,000+ colleges in the country is very telling. It is also symptomatic of the larger problem in the
country that neither the regulators, nor the managements of institutions, nor even the Central or state
governments are in any way accountable for student outcomes. Although MHRD has initiated the
process of reviewing UGC and AICTE, one more of many such efforts, it is disquieting that there are
no indications of any strategic guidelines having been specified.
88
89
The big ticket reform in governance that is needed in the case of Universities is the introduction of
the Shared Governance model (Hendrickson, et al. 2013) that has been extremely successful in
the United States in creating exceptional, high-quality, research universities (Rosovsky 2013). Prof.
Rosovsky71 describes shared governance in the US and contrasts it with the system prevailing in
India and elsewhere as follows: The trustees and president (of universities in the US) conditionally
delegate educational policy to the faculty. That would primarily include curriculum and the initial
selection of those who teach, are admitted to study, and do research. The administrative style is
collegial rather than top-down, faculty sharing authority in specified areas with appointed
administrators and trustees, the latter holding final authority. This is a distinctly American form of
shared governance, which relies on a strong executive that is accountable for outcomes. Presidents,
provosts, and deans possess and exercise considerable authority over budgets, institutional
priorities, and many other matters of consequence. This may be contrasted with the so-called
continental model (also prevalent in India) that features what, in its purist form, can only be
described as participatory democracy faculty elections of rectors and deans, and policy decisions
sometimes placed in the hands of assemblies based on the principle of parity: faculty, students, and
employees sharing authority. In my opinion, this form of governance has been a great obstacle to
progress and while it is very difficult to generalise it seems that even continental practice is
moving toward greater executive authority.
4.1.3. S TU D E N T B O D Y E D U C A TI O N
FOR
LIFE
AN D
C I TI Z E N S HI P
A Task Force72 on Higher Education and Society constituted by the World Bank which produced a
report on the perils and promises of higher education in the developing countries, makes a strong
case for providing a liberal education to students from these countries (World Bank 2000). The Task
Force describes a person with a liberal education as someone who:
can think and write clearly, effectively, and critically, and who can communicate with precision,
cogency, and force;
has a critical appreciation of the ways in which we gain knowledge and understanding of the
universe, of society, and of ourselves;
has a broad knowledge of other cultures and other times, and is able to make decisions based
on reference to the wider world and to the historical forces that have shaped it;
has some understanding of and experience in thinking systematically about moral and ethical
problems;
and has achieved depth in some field of knowledge.
71
Henry Rosovsky is Geyser University Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Harvard University. He is also former Dean
of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University and a former member of Harvard;s governing body
72 The Task Force comprised many eminent members from around the world and the member from India was none other
than former Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh. It was co-chaired by Prof Henry Rosovsky of Harvard University and
Dr Mamphela Ramphele, Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town.
ORF Recommendations
These are also the cognitive skills that have been listed by most employers surveyed in India as
characteristics that they are looking for in graduating students. A liberal education has a clear
practical impact on a society because it can promote responsible citizenship, ethical behaviour,
broad-mindedness, critical thinking, and communication skills, all of which are essential elements of
effective participatory democracy (Nussbaum 2010). It can also prepare students to cope with a fast
changing work environment, and helps them learn to become lifelong learners. Education is about
imparting knowledge, knowhow and character, says Prof M.S. Ananth, former Director, IIT
Madras, going on to add: In science and engineering, the core knowledge of the different subjects
does not change much. It can comprise up to 60% of what needs to be taught. Knowhow changes
every two years and must be constantly updated. It can require approximately 20% of the time.
The rest must be spent in building up the character of the students to prepare them for learning
to learn and coping with change.
However, liberal education tends to be expensive and is also not part of Indias formal academic
tradition. This is one of the reasons why the four-year undergraduate program at Delhi University
met with so much resistance from all quarters and was recently shut down. CoEPs efforts in this
direction, through the EAGLE program, is presently fully funded by industry. Given the criticality of
educating the next generation of leaders in developing countries the Task Force wisely recommends
adopting a stratified system of higher education that gives opportunities for students to get either a
more or a less extensive liberal education depending on their interests, motivation and other external
factors. India has the opportunity to create a new and unique model for liberal education in the 21 st
century. Since our traditional strength has been STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics) education, we need to try and branch out into a more liberal education without losing
our strength in STEM education. For this to happen, we will need to create an empowering
environment in which autonomous colleges can experiment freely with a liberal curriculum.
A natural way in which students can be trained to become responsible members of society is to
expose them to the diversity of thoughts, cultures, languages and beliefs that arise from widespread
nationalisation and internationalisation of the student body. Unfortunately, many states have either
a bar or a ceiling on the participation of students from other states. State governments must be
persuaded to relax this rule in the interests of quality outcomes.
4.1.4. M AK I N G A F F I RM A TI VE A C TI O N W O RK
Affirmative Action (reservations) for students will only serve their purpose if these students are given
the assistance they need to overcome their disadvantages and mainstream quickly. Be it in
communication skills, fluency with language, or familiarity with subject matter, first-time learners
and students who need them must have access to preparatory courses, bridge courses, etc. so that
they can catch up with their peers in as short a time period as possible. This can only happen with
careful planning and the will on the part of the institutions to ensure that beneficiaries of affirmative
action policies are prepared for competing on merit at the earliest. CoEP has put such a system in
place. The IITs too have many variations of support systems. Government on its part must speed-
90
91
up admissions and ensure that weaker students do not arrive on campus until long after the semester
has started, depriving them of the opportunity to benefit from some of these provisions.
The eminent Radhakrishnan committee, commenting on early attempts at creating quotas for
different student groups by the University of Madras, called the practice unfortunate and suggested
that it be phased out within a time frame of 10 years (Radhakrishnan Committee 1950). At ORF
Mumbai we modify this statement to say that reservations must stop at the undergraduate level.
They must not apply to post-graduate admissions and selection for faculty positions. Affirmative
action for students can only work if are taught by the best available faculty, a requirement that points
naturally to the need for merit-selection of faculty.
Reservation for faculty positions has reached extremely dangerous levels now with recent additions
pushing the reserved quotas to 73% in Maharashtra. In the interest of seeking quality education for
students, we believe that politicians, governments and civil society must find the will to phase out
reservations for faculty positions in a finite time frame, of say a decade
In the words of Susan Hockfield, former President of MIT, Faculty travel the frontiers of their
disciplines and from that vantage point can best determine future directions of their fields and
design curricula that bring students to the frontier (Rosovsky 2013). Only the best faculty, those
who are good researchers as well as good teachers, can deliver on this promise and we owe it to
Indias future and to our young population to commit to merit selection of faculty.
4.1.5. R E C R UI TM E N T
AN D
E M P O W E RM E N T
OF
F AC UL TY
Neither the process of getting a Masters nor a PhD degree in India prepares a candidate for
teaching and mentoring students. In the developed countries, this deficiency is sought to be made
up for by giving students opportunities to be tutors and/or teaching assistants. We must consider
introducing this practice widely since we dont have it in India yet. It would not just give valuable
experience to these post-graduate students but also save faculty time that can go into research
instead. We must also think of better ways to give more extensive and formal training to aspiring
teachers that includes exposure to pedagogies, human psychology, work ethics, leadership and
much more. Educational institutions must be made responsible for in-service teacher training of all
their teachers, and be evaluated for it.
The affiliation system has taken away from faculty members a sense of their own relevance and has
consequently hurt their confidence. Many faculty members do not have the capacity to take charge
of academics, should they be given the freedom and opportunity to do so. This has bred a culture of
subservience that needs to be replaced by independent thinking and leadership (Chandran-Wadia,
Correia, et al. 2011). Leadership training for large numbers of faculty must therefore be taken up
on an urgent basis. Faculty must be encouraged to think creatively about their responsibilities
towards the students and the college, as well as to their own personal advancement. The rampant
use of poorly paid contract appointments for faculty, devoid of any rights or any sense of ownership,
is unfortunately not conducive to encouraging creative thinking.
ORF Recommendations
The fact that India has the smallest numbers of faculty with a PhD, just 20% on average from
among teachers at engineering colleges (Saeki and Imaizumi 2013), is another very serious
handicap. More faculty members need to be encouraged and enabled to take up research towards
a PhD degree from some of the best research institutes in the country. A recent announcement by
the government (DST) asking scientists working at research institutions in the country to teach at
colleges73 is welcome, but we believe that their time could be better utilised for training teachers and
for supervising PhD work among them.
The present acute shortage of faculty can be sought to be compensated for in innovative ways. A
section of the entry level positions can be designated as post-doctoral positions and given to fresh
PhD degree holders for a period of 2-3 years each, in rotation. A second option is to bring in
international faculty since internationalisation is also well known for bringing about positive changes
in work culture. A third way would be to institutionalise adjunct faculty positions and fill them with
experts from industry. This practice can be given an impetus by counting the time spent teaching at
colleges by employees towards the CSR spends of the respective companies. There are many PhD
degree holders working in companies in India who can come forward to teach one-semester courses
to the mutual benefit of themselves, their employers and the colleges concerned. These people can
also help to build the bridges needed, for technology development and monetisation of research,
between the colleges and their companies. At ORF we believe that if many more colleges can
provide a free, respectful and enabling environment of the kind CoEP does, it is very likely that
many more PhDs will also return to academia permanently.
Evaluation criteria for faculty, for their promotions, also need to be improved and expanded so that
faculty are rewarded for looking beyond teaching and research and are encouraged to take up other
activities that contribute to the development of students, of their institutions, and to nation building.
This is a key aspect of the role and responsibility of faculty members but is rarely implemented, even
in the premier institutions of the country, because of the difficulty of evolving objective criteria for
evaluation. However, given the criticality of the need and the knowledge that this is routinely dealt
with elsewhere in the developed world, in a collegial manner, we in India must make a beginning.
We must evolve knowhow dynamically and share it widely.
4.1.6. I N N O V A TI O N S
IN THE
P R O M O TI O N
OF
R E S E A RC H
AN D
E N TR E P RE N E U RS HI P
Internships and undergraduate research opportunities are indispensable for students towards
learning by doing so we must create many such opportunities for them. This will require planning in
a coordinated manner to: 1) bringing industry and academia together to offer internships and
research opportunities; and 2) make time in the academic calendar for these activities during the
summer, by adopting and sticking to a pre-announced academic time-table that builds in at least 8
weeks of break-time between semesters. An unpredictable academic calendar is a serious handicap
that affects students in most colleges and universities.
73
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/5000-govt-scientists-to-teach-in-schoolscolleges/articleshow/42071537.cms accessed December 2014
92
93
The curriculum for engineering education, as well as a portion of the allocation of research funding,
must be aligned with some of the countries priorities and challenges such as the Swachch Bharat
Abhiyaan, the provision of clean drinking water, use of renewable energy technologies for the
provision of electricity and clean cooking alternatives, sustainable organic agriculture and healthcare issues in urban as well as rural India including malnutrition, epidemics, and mental health issues
among many others. If funding support is directed in this way it will incentivise academics, particularly
those in engineering departments, to take up and solve some of the challenges faced by Indian
society. The government can play a very important role here by allocating funding for challenges
and grand challenges as is done in the United States. However, this increase must not be done at
the expense of funding for basic sciences. The pool of available research funds must be increased
from the present 0.8% of GDP to 2% of GDP as quickly as possible.
Research parks are a wonderful way to bring about interaction between industry and academia. The
successful experience of creating one at IIT Madras must be replicated in many universities and
institutes around the country. Nearly 150 companies come out of MIT alone in the US each year,
creating not just wealth but many jobs. India must move quickly to promote research and
entrepreneurship in many more educational institutions, in conjunction with industry.
4.1.7. J UD I CI O US
US E O F I N F O RM A TI O N AN D
C O M M UN I C A TI O N S T E CHN O L O G I E S (ICT S )
Experiments in online education have seen explosive growth the world over and online education
has been described as A Tsunami that is about to hit Higher Education74. Online education in the
form of live interactive lectures transmitted live over the network from IIT Bombay played a very
important role in the transformation of CoEP, but there are other interesting models of online
education that work well even in the offline mode with students accessing recorded lectures at
their leisure75. The RUSA mission provides us with an invaluable opportunity to experiment with
many different models of online education that can be contextualised to India, and used not only to
increase GER but also for skill development. The NPTEL Project and its extensions, the Virtual Lab
Project and the National Knowledge Network (NKN) are some excellent initiatives that need to be
strengthened and expanded to reach many more government as well as private colleges.
IIT Bombay has also in the past experimented with broadcast technologies such as VSATs (with
support from ISRO) to educate several hundreds of teachers at a time (now scaled up to many
thousands, and likely to go even higher with the launch of DTH channels for education on TV). These
teachers are scattered over multiple locations, each location acting as a resource centre, being
hosted most often at local colleges. If one couples the model of online learning through live lectures
with recent ones such as MOOCs coming out of MIT, Harvard and Stanford through edX, Coursera76
and their variants, many interesting possibilities present themselves. IIT Bombay has just launched
74
This description is by President John Hennessey of Stanford University. For a discussion see
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/opinion/brooks-the-campus-tsunami.html?_r=1& accessed December 2014
75 NPTEL National Programme for Technology Enabled Learning is an Indian effort in quality engineering education.
See http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/ accessed December 2014
76 https://www.edx.org/ EdX is a non-profit venture created by Harvard and MIT to bring the best of higher education to
students around the world through MOOCs. Coursera is similar, but is a for-profit company out of Stanford University.
ORF Recommendations
its own MOOC77 from September 2014. It is exciting that we in India are beginning to experiment
with technologies that can reach a very large number of students. On a cautionary note it is important
to remember that education, particularly for weaker and first generation students, is still very much
about contact and mentorship78 and many cautionary voices exist (Rosovsky 2013).
With regard to other technologies, online education supported by Learning Management Systems
(LMS) and tools for creating courses such as EdX, a Content Management System (CMS) for online
publishing of educational material, for live textbooks etc., are all projects that require Cloud-based
solutions that are best funded by MHRD and run as a service for all educational institutions. Although
some initiatives are already underway 79 , there are many others that are needed for promoting
inclusive access to quality education by inducting technology at scale (Chandran-Wadia 2011).
Online education also provides a wonderful opportunity to revisit pedagogies in education in the
digital age, for research in the Science of Learning80.
4.1.8. T A CK L I N G I S S UE S
OF
A F F O RD A BI L I T Y
AN D
F I N AN CI N G
Governments have a stake in keeping the tuition fees low, ostensibly to keep education affordable
to all but in reality to keep their subsidy burden under control. Given the sharp growth in Gross
Enrolment Ratio (GER) during the past decade (UGC 2013) that has added 12-15 million students
into the higher education stream, the subsidy burden is only growing however. It will continue to do
so as the GER climbs even further to 30%, well into 2020 and beyond, by design, putting further
pressure on subsidies. It would therefore be wiser in the long run to allow tuition fees to be raised
to reflect some of the real costs involved (Kakodkar 2011) and to introduce targeted subsidies,
through partial and full scholarships, to all needy students. The present situation of climbing
subsidy burdens despite low tuition fees, arising out of our demographics, and the concomitant poor
infrastructure and inferior quality of education for everyone is unsustainable. Indian education is not
at all competitive on the world stage and we must act immediately. The only way to deal with
affordability issues, given the large numbers of students needing a good education today, is to
provide targeted financial assistance.
Student loans have never been very popular in India but well thought out schemes such as the
Burden on the Beneficiaries devised by Dr Kohli, which only charge simple interest and involve the
educational institutions is assisting banks with disbursing and recovering the loans, can contribute
towards changing this. Since all the permissions are already in place, from the Indian Banks
Association as well as the RBI, colleges can step forward to get these implemented quickly. The
Companies Act 2013 will release a lot more funds into the education system and colleges can look
forward to many more named scholarships being instituted for deserving students. It must be left to
them to administer these scholarships and free-ships.
77
https://www.edx.org/school/iitbombayx/ accessed December 2014

http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/243/flowers.html accessed December 2014
79 http://aview.in/ Aview is a project supported by the National Mission on Education through ICT.
80 See http://scienceoflearning.jhu.edu/ for a perspective on the essential part of human capital: the ability to learn.
78
94
95
Approximately Rs 100 crore was spent by CoEP over a period of 5-6 years, to revamp infrastructure
and build new laboratories etc. This is a very modest cost and a similar amount must, at minimum,
be provided to every college that is given autonomy and earmarked to become IIT-like. The total
outlay of Rs 10,000 crore is roughly equivalent to the cost of creating 5 or 6 new IITs. We urge
MHRD to allocate additional funds for this equally worthy initiative.
The regional imbalance must also be addressed and more educational institutions must come up in
states like Bihar, UP, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and the North East region. These states are among the
poorest and often cannot find the money to contribute their designated share. We urge the RUSA
mission to unleash federalism and to allocate funds to these states on a competitive basis, to those
state governments that are willing to commit to quality higher and technical education.
4.1.9. W E E D I N G O U T P O O R Q U AL I TY I N S TI T U TI O N S A C C RE D I T A TI O N
A C CO UN T A BI L I TY
AND
Autonomy must always go hand in hand with accountability (Prakash 2011). GoI and the RUSA
mission must create a framework for accountability that all newly autonomous institutions must
adhere to. The framework can also benefit the much larger group of affiliated colleges that are not
yet autonomous. This will require paying attention to issues of scale.
Although NAAC and NBA have been relatively successful in their work, they have between them
accredited far too few institutions and programmes. They must shift their focus towards ensuring
that a maximum number of institutions and programmes are accredited each year. For this they
must outsource the actual accreditation to a multiplicity of private players by switching roles and
becoming regulatory authorities instead. They can define norms for accreditation and oversee the
work of the accrediting agencies. It is advisable that the Banking/Telecom model of scaling out
services to citizens using multiple services providers, a regulator and a tribunal is adapted
innovatively in the space of education.
UGC, AICTE, the state governments, NBA, and all other agencies must work together to issue
standardised norms for ensuring accountability. Full and pro-active disclosure with regard to fees
charged and other financial matters 81 , the facilities available, the degrees offered, and data
regarding student intake and outcomes, must be required from all colleges. All educational
institutions, irrespective of whether they are public or private, must be brought under the ambit
of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. These moves will pave the way for the bulk of the colleges to
govern themselves, leaving the regulatory authorities free to deal with only the few that are
defaulters. MIS and regular reporting to funding and regulatory agencies are other important
activities that can contribute further to bringing in transparency. Presently this kind of reporting is
cumbersome and repetitive because each agency maintains its own formats.
81
The financial scrutiny of the statement of accounts of Trusts and Societies is not as rigorous as that of Section 25
(Section 8 in the new Companies Act 2013) companies. Governments must consider allowing only the latter to set up
new educational institutions in the future.
ORF Recommendations
CoEP has been very successful at creating a transparent and accountable institution by simply
adhering to the true spirit of autonomy. Other colleges must look to imbibing the same spirit.
4.1.10. N E W I N S TI T U TI O N S O N L Y L A RG E M UL TI D I S CI PL I N AR Y R E S I D E N T I AL
R E S E AR CH U N I VE RS I T I E S
In our determined efforts to increase GER we have been overlooking the fact that we must also try
to reverse some of the extreme fragmentation in our education system and improve the opportunities
for multi-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary learning available to our students. Governments must
make the bold decision to refrain from giving permissions for opening new colleges and focus
instead on opening very large multi-disciplinary research universities that can support 30,000
students or more. Every state can have one or more of these universities which can even become
the anchor activity for the creation of new townships. These universities must be fully residential,
and include disciplines that have traditionally been separate such as medicine, agriculture and law,
so that national interests as well as the interests of our young students will be better served. Existing
colleges and universities must be allowed to begin new disciplines that have synergies with the
existing ones and grow their student bodies. For this they must be given the freedom to manage the
campuses and grow it vertically as needed.
Many large corporate houses have in recent years come forward to set up private universities. This
is an extremely valuable opportunity for India, to try and create the equivalents of some of the best
private universities in the US. These universities must therefore be given maximum freedom to
innovate and evolve their own unique models of education. Only minimal constraints such as a
diversity quotient and a requirement to support meritorious students from poor backgrounds through
the need-blind admission process must be imposed by the concerned state governments.
Unfortunately many of them are trying to hobble these new universities by proposing unacceptable
clauses on affirmative action in their Acts. This is a great pity because such green-field opportunities
will be rare for India in the future.
4.2.
The Way Forward
The challenge for India is to be able to find the political will to rid ourselves of our twin banes
excessive regulation and inadequate funding if we are to deliver big ticket reforms and transform
completely the way in which higher and technical education is delivered in the country. The paradigm
of regulation must be changed completely to transition from the license-permit raj, which has not
succeeded at all, to a flexible enabling framework supported by well thought-out norms for
transparency and accountability that are stringently enforced. Adequate funding to education and
research at a minimum level of 6% of GDP must be provided, something that has not happened
despite promises by successive governments since the mid-1990s.
Not since the time of former Prime Minister, Shri Jawaharlal Nehru, have we re-affirmed our
commitment to Science and Technology based Innovation, the basis on which developed countries
96
97
have grown their economies for over six decades, post-World War II. The foresight, planning, good
policies and investments in education and research in India in the 1950s and the 1960s set the stage
for the creation of an enviable science and technology workforce. However, in recent years the sheen
has gone out, largely due to our reluctance to review outcomes and to alter policies as needed to
adapt to our strategic requirements.
The route to excellence in education delivery espoused by CoEP is just one of many ways in which
similar results can be achieved by all the other colleges. However, there are several useful lessons
that can be learnt from their experience, based on key principles of good institutional management
and we have tried to highlight these. A recent UK report (Graham 2012) which provides six case
studies of the transformation of engineering education in different countries reinforces many of the
excellent steps taken by CoEP. However, our call for creating 100 IIT-like institutions will not get off
the ground unless GoI and the state governments see this goal is a strategic priority. It remains to
be seen whether Indias best and brightest will be backed by the political will to make Science and
Technology based Innovation the basis, once again, for our future prosperity.
4.2.1. P O L I CY F R AM E W O RK
AN D
L E G AL H U RD L E S
The UPA government under Dr Manmohan Singh was well aware of the need to reform higher
education urgently. The Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE) was revived and several
CABE committees were set up to look into higher education (CABE 2005) (CABE Financing HE
2005). The National Knowledge Commission was set up which gave a scathing report of the state
of higher education (NKC 2006) and made many important recommendations regarding engineering
education82. This was followed up by a report by the Yashpal committee (Yashpal Committee 2009)
containing many good ideas on how to rejuvenate higher education.
All this preparatory work was followed by a slew of bills in parliament83. Although the intentions were
very good the bills were poorly thought out and met with stiff resistance on many fronts. Most have
lapsed since then and very recently the Higher Education and Research Bill 84 , 2011, which
envisaged creating a National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER) as a super
regulatory authority to replace, UGC, AICTE and NCTE, has now been withdrawn from Parliament
(Rajya Sabha). Although the details of the NCHER bill met with stiff opposition from many quarters,
including from the ORF Mumbai (ORF 2010), the concept of NCHER itself is still relevant and needs
adequate thought, careful redesign and diligent implementation.

This sets up the opportunity for the present NDA government to go back to the drawing board and
to take a holistic look at the higher education sector and to rework all the lapsed the bills. In the
interests of achieving the stated goal of quality education it is critical that we do not resort to tinkering
of any kind. Only a comprehensive and cogent set of policies that empowers educational
institutions, places eminent academics at the centre stage of bringing about change, and replaces
age-old regressive mind-sets with strategic and forward thinking will be acceptable. The interests
82
http://knowledgecommission.gov.in/downloads/recommendations/PMLetterEngineer.pdf
http://www.prsindia.org/billtrack/hrd-labour-health/ accessed December 2014
84 http://www.prsindia.org/billtrack/the-higher-education-and-research-bill-2011-2153/ accessed November 2014.
83
ORF Recommendations
of the students and the country must be central to all decision making. The roles of all regulators
must be reviewed within a strategic framework to ensure that their roles are not interpreted narrowly
and that high-quality, inter-disciplinary, and multi-disciplinary education become available to
students as quickly as possible.
The State governments must also play their role by legislating quickly and effectively to remove all
the constraints arising from the existing Acts and Statutes of universities. As of now, giving autonomy
to affiliated colleges is strictly illegal as per existing laws in several states. Changing this may require
revisiting the parent laws in order to provide for autonomy in the various facets of their functioning,
which is a task easier said than done. The need for revisiting Acts and Statutes of universities is
being discussed for a long time, but state governments have been reluctant to act. The Centre can
stimulate activity by unleashing competition between the states for RUSA funds.
4.2.2. M E N TO RI N G
B Y I N S TI T U TI O N S
AND
B Y I N D I VI D U AL S
This leaves only the question of what academia individual academics, scientists, researchers,
educators as well as educational institutions can do to contribute towards promoting excellence in
higher and technical education delivery. Most academics have taken a back seat due to the present
regulatory and governance environment but this must change quickly because the knowhow
relating to quality education delivery can only come from within this community. One of the main
difficulties has been the fact that there are no formal mechanisms to tap into the specific expertise
of individuals and institutions in the country. These are not even tracked as they ought to be. Yet, it
is completely clear from our discussions with many eminent academics that the expertise to turn
around the quality of education delivery exists within the community and they are willing to help. The
chief stumbling blocks are the lack of leadership from the central government and the trust
deficiency between the various groups of stakeholders.
Given that IIT Bombay played such an important role in mentoring CoEP and given also that the
original five IITs received mentoring and support from international institutions, it is clear that the
process for mentoring of institutions needs to be generalised and institutionalised. Although the
IITs are already mentoring their newer counterparts, they must also contribute to the growth and
development of other engineering colleges. Individuals must contribute too, not just from the IITs but
also from other premier institutions in the country. Indeed, scientists, engineers, researchers must
all be encouraged and incentivised to spend either a semester or a year at these colleges, creating
and delivering new courses, accepting to be thesis advisers for faculty from colleges desirous of
doing their PhDs, and so on. For this the evaluation criteria of researchers and faculty at these
premier institutions must be generalised to reward them for such contributions.
As far back as in 2002 Dr Kohli, supported by Dr Y.V. Reddy, then Deputy Governor RBI, Prof P.
Rama Rao, then Vice Chancellor, University of Hyderabad, and a team at Tata Consultancy Services
(TCS), had prepared a detailed proposal for a voluntary initiative to improve the quality of higher
education and research in India (TCS 2002). It envisaged the creation of a new non-profit
organisation Foundation for Excellence in Higher Education and Research (FEHER) whose
98
99
objective it would be to trigger the quest for excellence in identified higher education institutions
in India. FEHER was envisaged as an academic consultancy that would connect experts with the
educational institutions that required their expertise, and gathering knowledge, knowhow and best
practices for widespread dissemination.
The concept of FEHER was remarkably foresighted. Much of the know-how and expertise needed
to improve the quality of education and research at CoEP is completely reusable and is readily
available with its faculty and leadership. FEHER can gather these from CoEP and from other
successful colleges such as BVB College, Hubli, and become the repository of these best practices.
It can then disseminate these best practices widely to create a multiplicative impact. Expertise
regarding curriculum, pedagogies, new courses, the knowhow for revamping laboratories, nurturing
research and innovation etc., are all skills that are uniquely available only within academia with
experts in the IITs, IISc, and other premier research institutes in the country. The mentors provided
to colleges by the TEQIP programme were also experts drawn from these institutes. These
individuals can now be formally associated with FEHER as consultants, with the active co-operation
of their parent institutions.
Additionally FEHER can draw on expertise within industry, NGOs and even civil society. This will
increase the pool of knowledge and experts available to FEHER and through it to the colleges that
request for it. A selection of tasks that FEHER can be engaged in includes:
Innovative initiatives for teacher training and empowerment, in consultation with eminent
faculty and educators from premier institutions;
Assistance to institutions with using appropriate ICT infrastructure to support quality education
content repositories for Open Educational Resources (OER) supported by a Learning
Registry, in English as well as in Indian languages85, content creation tools and a whole host
of other useful software;
Interaction with experts from abroad to bring home global best practices into education
delivery;
Promotion of the financial model Burden on the Beneficiaries that can provide students
with financial assistance to pay fees;
Monitoring and data gathering regarding all aspects of the rollout of this initiative for feedback
into improvements, and analysis for inputs into policy.
We believe that the time has come to create such an organisation with initial funding support from
governments as well as industry. Only a collective effort, involving all interest groups working
together with a can do attitude, can bridge the gaps and produce a coherent intervention that is
likely to yield results.
85
http://www.learningregistry.org/about - A set of technical protocols for content authors and aggregators that will allow
educators to quickly find content specific to their unique needs. Accessed December 2014
Annexure I Metrics for Evaluating Quality
5. A NNEXURE I M ETRICS FOR E VALUATING Q UALITY

As an alternative to a full discussion of the metrics that must be used for evaluating quality of an
institution is outside the scope of this document, we bring you the parameters that have been used
for self-evaluation and for setting targets for improvement by CoEP. Many of these are generally
also used by accrediting and rating agencies as well. Increasingly now, there is emphasis on trying
to ensure student outcomes, on supporting innovation and providing impetus to entrepreneurial
ventures. These pointers can serve as useful inputs for a discussion on a nationally acceptable
evaluation system.
5.1.
Education Delivery
S TU D E NT I N TA KE
A ND
O U TC OM E S
1. Are the best students coming to CoEP? Highest rank in state-level entrance examination and
highest percentage of twelfth standard marks earned by students joining the institution. The table
below shows the intake quality in percentile;
T ABLE 16: A DMISSION Q UALITY : N UMBER
OF STUDENTS IN DIFFERENT PERCENTILE RANGE
2013-14
2012-13
2011-12
2010-11
680
665
691
685
495
553
552
558
95 98 percentile
107
108
103
95
90 95 percentile
35
02
22
21
80 90 percentile
02
14
11
< 80 percentile
15
00
00
00
F.Y. B.Tech Total

intake
> 98 percentile
2. Diversity of students coming in from across the state, the country and also international.
Students at CoEP appear to be coming in from all over Maharashtra. Although there is a limited
quota for students from other states like J and K, North East and Andaman and Nicobar Islands,
there is no pan India admission. However, CoEP has 15% supernumerary quota for students
from Gulf, NRI, FN and PIOs.
3. Placement record:
The number and percentage of students graduating who secure campus placements. Of
particular interest to students is the highest salary packages received although this is not
a conventional parameter. For instance, the salary packages in 2013 were the following:
lowest 3.00 Lakhs, average 5.5 Lakhs, highest 40 Lakhs;
Number of companies that return to campus each year for placements and increase in
number of companies coming in each year;
100
101
A related metric worth tracking is to keep counts of engineers who stay in their chosen
fields and those who switch over after their first job. Achievements of alumni within first 45 years. Such tracer studies are being planned by CoEP through its MIS;
4. Quality of placement names and stature of the companies hiring, multi-national, core and
IT/ITES;
5. Industry feedback are students doing well in the industry? Feedback from companies who
come in for campus recruitment;
6. Higher studies the number of students who opt for higher education i.e., Masters and PhD
programmes in the top universities of the country and the world;
7. Number of students turning to entrepreneurship and their success stories.
S TU D E NT E X P E RIE NC E
1. Overall experience of the students (as judged from course feedback and exit surveys) and the
extent to which the institute:
a. helps and encourages students to pursue their dreams and makes them confident people;
b. helps increase their exposure to world affairs;
c. assists them with communication skills and learning public speaking;
2. Confession pages of students these are often excellent indicators of student experience and
their perception of the institution. Also inputs coming into the Intranet-based, anonymous
complaints/suggestion page provided by the college;
3. Vibrancy of alumni networks and Internet-based alumni-student mentorship;
P R O FI C IE NC Y
OF
F A C U LT Y
A N D SU P P OR T P RO V ID E D T O TH E M
1. Faculty empowerment and extent of academic freedom. This refers mainly to the percentage of
faculty that are PhD holders and the increase in their numbers due to the institutional support for
pursuing PhD (full-time, sponsorship, QIP, part-time, with decreased work load);
a. Assistance for attending conferences in India and abroad and visits to universities abroad;
b. Training opportunities in specialised areas;
c. Memberships to professional societies;
d. Liberal Consulting rules;
e. Awards won;
R E SE A RC H
A ND I N NO V A TI ON
1. Number of PhDs graduated This measure is equally applicable to student as well as faculty
PhDs. Many faculty members begin their teaching career without a PhD degree but go on to get
one during their tenure at the college;
2. Number of research papers published in peer reviewed journals by the faculty;
3. Student papers in national and international conferences and journals;
Annexure I Metrics for Evaluating Quality
4. Number of patents filed and technologies developed;

5. Number of textbooks published by the institution (with additional weightage given to renowned
publishers);
6. Number of awards received by students and faculty in competitions;
7. Memberships and Fellowships of prestigious professional societies;
5.2.
Institutional Infrastructure, Governance and Reputation
1. The Institutions vision, mission and goals and how far it has progressed towards achieving them;
2. Departmental and individual vision, mission and goals in alignment with the institute;
3. Regular review, consolidation efforts and revision of these at 5 year intervals;
4. Infrastructure (including labs) sufficiency, quality and usefulness benchmarked with
IITs/MIT/Stanford;
5. Budget and the Return on Investment Vs. Benchmarks based on student and faculty
achievements as enumerated in Table 15;
6. Project methodology ensuring continuity of projects across different batches of students;
7. Formal UG/PG projects, sponsored projects and special student driven socially relevant projects
such as river cleaning, pollution control, pico-satellite, electric vehicle etc.
8. EAGLE life skills development programme;
9. Pride and a sense of belonging of students, faculty and support staff. Also whether industries
and organisations interfacing with the college feel proud to do so;
10. Branding of the institution with specific events that are unique to the institution). Some examples
include the annual Regatta, Mindspark (innovation and technical event) and Zest (sports event);
11. Index to measure how the faculty and administrative departments interact with the students
before, during and after their course of study at the college: based on regular meetings, course
feedback, complaints/ suggestion portal, and feedback at the end of the course.
I ND U S T RY
AND
A LU M NI L I NKA GE S
1. Number of MoUs signed with industry partners;

2. Number and variety of companies providing internship opportunities;
3. Number of industry relevant projects;
4. Consultancy assignments;
5. Patents and technology transfer;
6. Alumni involvement in college activities:
a. such as the participatory setting up of labs in the college and
102
103
b. new initiatives such as BIEL and its associated incubator, and

c. student healthcare records;
d. co-teaching;
e. mentorship; and
f.
funding student activities.
6. A NNEXURE II A CCOLADES WON BY THE C OLLEGE

From academics and research to extra-curricular activities, the faculty and students have excelled
in many spheres and won awards for CoEP. To keep track of the achievements and remarkable
contributions of students and faculty, every year, the institute compiles a record of its GLITTERING
STARS. The following is a partial list of some of the accolades that have come CoEPs way:
S TU D E NT A C H IE V E M E NT S : A C A D E M IC S , R E SE A R C H
A N D I N N OV A TI ON
Research publications by undergraduate students are a hallmark of CoEP. Many student papers
have been compared with those of graduate research scholars and have received acclaim and
awards;
Students have designed a Pico satellite (< 1 kg weight) for naval applications, in collaboration
with ISRO. The satellite is expected to go into orbit in 2014;
CoEP was adjudged the winner of the first ever BAJA-SAE India contest for developing an
all-terrain four wheeler vehicle in 2007 and again in 2013 beating approximately 220 colleges
in India including several IITs and NITs. CoEP has been winning the best design award every
year and it has won the largest number of awards in 2014 including first runner-up. The CoEP
designed vehicle has been the fastest for 3 consecutive years, 2012-2014; COEP also won
the race in BAJA 2013 South Africa along with overall 3rd position.
CoEP students have developed a bomb detection and disposal robot to help the Police
department;
A group of students have created a walking mobile charger and applied for a patent;
CoEP won the Global E-learning Award for being the first Engineering Institute to be part of
Wikipedia India Education Program (started in year 2011) and to use Wikipedia for editing
the contents as assignments in 2012;
Robocon 2013: Best Innovative Design; (more details about competition)
Robocon 2012: second runner up;
JEDIISc challenge award 2012, 2013;
COEP students won two awards in the Texas Instruments Design Contest 2012 for their
projects, competing with students from several engineering institutes all over India including
the IITs;
Anand Wadodkar, won the 'Best Student Research Paper' award for his paper Development
of SnO2 based gas sensors with faster response recovery time, presented at the 2nd Annual
Annexure II Accolades won by the College
International Conference on Materials Science, Metal & Manufacturing (M3 2012) held at
Singapore, November 2012;
Other awards won by CoEP students include:
o
Present Around the world IET Award, 2008 Rohit Pandharkar;
Microsoft Imagine Cup Award, 2009 Shaizen Aga and others;
Google Women India Award, 2010 Neha Kalekar;
Luigi Nepalitano Award, 2011 Nischay Mhatre;
Tejogami Innovation Award, 2011 Nikunj Sampat;
E X TR A -C U R RI C U L A R A C T IV I TIE S
CoEP students regularly win prizes in debating competitions all over Maharashtra as also in
drama, in the prestigious Firodiya Karandak competition the only one of its kind in India, in
music, art and culture. The COEP student team performing street plays have won in 16 of 22
events nationwide they participated in.
CoEP team leaves a mark in the MOOD INDIGO festival of IITB every year.
CoEP bagged the first prize in A.K.Hangal Karandak hosted at Sir Parashurambhau College
Pune in association with The Indian Film and Theatre Association for their play Ab toh addat si
hai which depicted safety concerns of women, growing cyber-crimes and the ignorance and
detachment of youth in todays world.
COEP Students won the first prize in the IEEE Pune sections state level competition Creative
Awareness program 2011.
Shripad Sunil Kulkarni received the National Award for Academic Excellence by the INDUS
Foundation in Indo-American Education Summit & Expo, 2013.
Pratik Mishra was awarded Gold Medal in inter college tournament 2012-13 at university level
swimming competition.
Pratik Mishra was recognised as youngest water polo player to play for Maharashtra 36th in .
He was given the best player award for scoring 16 goals at state water polo meet playing for
Mumbai. He was selected to represent Indian water polo team for the European games held in
Russia in 2012-13. In many sports, students of CoEP find a place in university level
tournaments;
Ramanujan Maths Club, Astronomy Club, Robotics Club, Quiz Club, History club, Philosophy
Club, Personality Development Club, Entrepreneurship and Environmental Club are a few clubs
started by students. There is a large participation in these clubs and their activities are cherished
by students;
R E C O RD S
CoEP holds the unique Limca Book and Guinness book of World record for skipping on a single
rope by 292 students in 2006;
CoEP holds a Guinness World record for the longest painting by numbers 599.94 metre long
made by 135 students in 2009;
104
105
CoEP also holds a Guinness World record, as well as Limca Book record, for solving of the
Rubik cube by 3,248 students in half an hour, in 2012.
F A C U LT Y R E C OG NI TI O N
Faculty members also have several feathers in their cap, setting a fine example for their students:
Best Teacher Award from the State Government of Maharashtra to Prof B. B. Ahuja in 2010,
Prof M. A. Joshi in 2011, and Prof S. N. Sapali in 2013;
Our faculty, Prof M. S. Sutaone and Prof M. A. Joshi, have won the prestigious S.V.C. Aiyya
award for two consecutive years. This award has been won only by faculty of IIT/IISc so far;
Prof Sahasrabudhe honoured with the Praj Intrapreneur Award in 2011 and Edupreneur
Award by Edutech in Delhi in 2012;
Prof Vagge, Prof. Goyal, Prof. Sewatkar have won Best PhD Thesis Awards from IITs;
Prof Dalvi received best thesis award of Pune University in 2013;
Faculty have also participated and won awards and accolades in many international
conferences.
Two members of the Board of Governors Prof. S. G. Dhande, Former Director, IIT Kanpur,
and Mr. Pratap Pawar, Chairman, Sakal Media Group, were honoured with one of the
countrys highest civilian awards, the Padma Shri from the Government of India for their
distinguished service in the field of Education and Trade and Industry respectively in 2012
and 2013;
Prof B. B. Ahuja was appointed as the new Chairman of Technician Education by AICTE in
February 2013;
One of our former Professors Dr S. R. Kulkarni was honoured with the Leading Scientist of
the World Award 2011 by the International Biographical Centre, England;
Prof B. N. Chaudhari was awarded with the National award for Teaching Excellence13 by
Indian Global Education Summit in 2012;
Prof Pradeep Waychal was nominated to be the executive chair of Step-IN Forum Pune
chapter;
Shilpa Metkar received the Career Award for Young teachers from AICTE for 2012-13.
Prof P. P. Rege was awarded with the Best Teachers award from Cognizant Technologies.
Department of Production Engineering, COEP was honoured with the 'Academic Research
Award of Excellence' for year 2013, as recognition for all the Research & Development
activities carried by the department in the field of Additive Manufacturing Technologies.
COEP was honoured with the Bloomberg UTV B-School Excellence Award 2012 for having
Industry Related Curriculum in Information Technology;
Institute has been recognised by CII & AICTE joint survey and given second best IndustryInstitute Interaction award in 2012 and Best industry institute interaction award in
Mechanical Engineering in 2013.
Abbreviations & Glossary of Terms
Many faculty members serve on the Board of Studies member (BOS) and Academic Councils of
autonomous colleges. Prof Sahasrabudhe is member of the Senate and Academic Councils of
several universities and colleges and member of selection committees of IITs.
A BBREVIATIONS & G LOSSARY OF T ERMS

Abbreviation
Full form/ Description
AICTE
BoG
All India Council for Technical Education

American Society for Metals dedicated to serving the materials science and
engineering profession
Board of Governors
BSNL
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited Indian state-owned telecommunications company
CAP
Challenges and Action Points
CFD
Computational Fluid Dynamics
CGPA
Cumulative Grade Point Average
CNC
Computerised Numeric Control
CoEP
College of Engineering Pune
DAAD
Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst German Academic Exchange Service
DSP
Digital Signal Processing
DST-FIST
Department of Science & Technology Fund for Improvement of Science &

Technology Infrastructure in Universities and Higher Education Institutions
DTE
Directorate of Technical Education
EAGLE
Energised Accelerated Growth and Leadership Excellence
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
GDP
Gross Domestic Product
GER
Gross Enrolment Ratio
GoM
Government of Maharashtra
ICT
Institute of Chemical Technology (formerly UDCT)
IE
Institution of Engineers
IEE
Institute of Electrical Engineers
IEEE
Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
IETE
Institution of Electronic and Telecommunication Engineers
IIM
Indian Institute of Management
IIPM
Indian Institute of Project Management
IIT
Indian Institute of Technology
ISHRAE
Indian Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-conditioning Engineers
ISM
Institute for Supply Management
KVA
Kilo-Volt Amps
ASM
106
107
L&T
MHRD
Larsen & Toubro Limited

Matrix Laboratory a high-level technical computing language and interactive
environment for algorithm development, data visualisation, data analysis, numerical
computation and programming.
Ministry of Human Resource Development
MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MoU
Memorandum of Understanding
MW
MegaWatt
NIT
National Institute of Technology
NKN
National Knowledge Network
PCB
Printed Circuit Board
RPI, USA
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA
RPS
AICTE's Research Promotion Scheme
RUSA
Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan
SAE
Society of Automotive Engineers
SCADA
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition type of industrial control system
SGGS
Shri Guru Gobind Singhji Institute of Engineering and Technology
SGPA
TCS
Semester Grade Point Average

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats a strategy tool and planning
method
Tata Consultancy Services
TEQIP
Technical Education Quality Improvement Program
TTTI
Technical Teachers Training Institute
UGC
University Grants Commission
UICT
University Institute of Chemical Technology
VC
Vice-Chancellor
VJTI
Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute
VLSI
Very-Large-Scale Integration
MATLAB
SWOT
References
R EFERENCES
Banerjee, Rangan, and Vinayak P. Muley. Engineering Education in India. New Delhi: Macmillan
Publishers India, 2010.
Biswas, Gautam, K.L. Chopra, C.S. Jha, and D.V. Singh. Profile of Engineering Education in India:
Status, Concerns and Recommendations. New Delhi: Narosa Publishing House, 2010.
Blom, Andreas, and Hiroshi Saeki. Employability and Skill Set of Newly Graduated Engineers in
India. Policy Research Working Paper 5640, South Asia Region: The World Bank, 2011.
Blom, Andreas, Toby Linden, and A.U. Digraskar. "TEQIP Good Practice Guide for Governing
Bodies."
National
Program
Implementation
Unit.
December
2012.
http://www.npiu.nic.in/PDF/News/Good_Practice_Guide.pdf (accessed November 2013).
CABE Financing HE. "Report of the CABE Committee on Financing of Higher and Technical
Education." June 2005. http://mhrd.gov.in/seven-cabe-committees-constituted-september2004-financing-higher-and-technical-education.
CABE. "Report of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) Committee on Autonomy of
Higher Education Institutions." 2005. http://www.teindia.nic.in/files/reports/ccr/cabe/ahei.pdf.
Chandran-Wadia, Leena. ICT in Education: Tackling the Scale Problem. Observer Research
Foundation Mumbai, 2011.
Chandran-Wadia, Leena, Catarina Correia, Mathew T. Joseph, and Radha Viswanathan. "Are we
serious about enhancing creativity and innovation through education?" Innovation Educators
Conference. Hyderabad: Indian School of Business, 2011.
Crawley, Edward F., Johan Malmqvist, Sren stlund, and Doris R. Brodeur. Rethinking Engineering
Education: The CDIO Approach. Springer, 2014.
Dahlman, Carl J. China and India: Emerging Technological Powers. http://issues.org/23-3/dahlman/,
Issues in Science and Technology, 2007.
Gereffi, Gary, Vivek Wadhwa, Ben Rissing, and Ryan Ong. "Getting the Numbers Right: International
Engineering Education in the United States, China and India." Journal of Engineering
Education 97 (1), 2008: pp 13-25.
Gnanam, A. Report of the UGC Committee - Towards New Educational Management. New Delhi:
University Grants Commission, 1990.
GoI.
"National
Policy
on
Education
1986
Programme
of
http://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/POA_1992.pdf, 1992.
Action
1992."
Graham, Dr Ruth. Achieving Excellence in Engineering Education: The ingredients of Successful

Change. London: Royal Academy of Engineering U.K., 2012.
Hendrickson, Robert M., Jason E. Lane, James T. Harris, and Richard H Dorman. Academic
Leadership and Governance of Higher Education. Virginia: Stylus Publishing LLC, 2013.
108
109
Holland, Dawn, Iana Liadze, Cinzia Rienzo, and David Wilkinson. The relationship between
graduates and economic growth across countries. BIS Research Paper No. 110, London:
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Government of UK, 2013.
Kakodkar, Anil. "Higher Education in Maharashtra: Preparing for the Future - New ideas and
Pathways." Report of the Committee set up by the Giovernment of Maharashtra, 2011.
Khemka,
Karan,
and
Robert
Lytle.
Financing
Indian
Higher
Education.
http://www.parthenon.com/ThoughtLeadership/FinancingIndianHigherEducation,
The
Parthenon Group, 2011.
Kohli, F.C. Strategy for Enhancing Quality of Engineering Education. Mumbai: Tata Consultancy
Services, 2002.
Kothari Commission. Vol 3: Higher Education, Report of the Education Commission, 1964-66.
http://www.principals.in/uploads/pdf/educational_reports/KothariCommissionReport.pdf,
New Delhi: National Council of Educational Research and Training, 1966.
Kurup, Anitha, and Jagdish Arora. Trends in Higher Education: Creation and Analysis of a database
of PhDs. http://www.nias.res.in/docs/bkanitha-trendsreport.pdf, Bengaluru: National Institute
of Advanced Studies, 2010.
Mashelkar, R.A. "Governance in Education: The Indian Challenge." The Journal of Governance, Vol
6, 2013: pp9-17.
Mehta, Shailendra Raj. "Why is Harvard #1? Governance and the Dominance of US Universities."
Social
Science
Research
Network.
April
2012.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2039675 (accessed October 2013).
MHRD.
"Rashtriya
Uchchatar
Shiksha
Abhiyan."
September
http://www.mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/RUSA_final090913.pdf.
2013.
MHRD. Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme of Government of India: Project

Implementation Plan. http://www.npiu.nic.in/pdf/TEQIP-PIP.pdf, Noida: National Project
Implementation Unit, 2002.
. "TEQIP Phase II Project Implementation Plan." National Program Implementation Unit. 2009.
http://www.npiu.nic.in/PDF/PIP-TEQIP-II%20for%20Web.pdf (accessed November 2013).
Miller, Riel. Education and Economic Growth: From the 19th to the 21st Century.
https://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/education/Education-and-Economic-Growth.pdf,
Cisco Systems Inc., 2007.
NAE. Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century. National
Academy of Engineering http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11338.html, Washington D.C.: National
Academies Press, 2005.
NKC. "Note on Higher Education." National Knowledge Commission . November 2006.
http://knowledgecommission.gov.in/downloads/recommendations/HigherEducationNote.pdf
(accessed October 2013).
References
NPE.
National
Policy
on
Education
1986
As
modified
http://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/NPE86-mod92.pdf, Ministry
Resource Development, 1986.
in
of
1992.
Human
Nussbaum, Martha C. Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 2010.
Olson, Steve. "The Importance of Engineering Talent to the Prosperity and Security of a Nation:
Summary of Forum (2014)." 2014. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=18626.
ORF. "Comments and Recommendations on the draft NCHER Bill: A much needed Reform that fails
the test." 2010.
Prakash, Ved. "Concerns about Autonomy and Academic Freedom in Higher Education Institutions."
Economic and Political Weekly Vol XLVI No 16, 2011: 36-40.
Radhakrishnan Committee. Report of the University Education Commission (December 1948 August 1949). Delhi: Ministry of Education, Government of India, 1950.
Raju, M.M. Pallam. "Quest for Quality in Higher Education." Conference of Governors, 14 Feb 2014.
MHRD, 2014.
Rosovsky, Henry. "Research Universities: American Exceptionalism?" The Big Picture: Assessing
the Future of Higher Education; Carnegie Corporation of New York. 2013.
http://higheredreporter.carnegie.org/research-universities-american-exceptionalism/.
Saeki, Hiroshi, and Saori Imaizumi. International comparative study : engineering education in India.
South
Asia
Human
Development
Sector
report
no.
57.
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/04/17844321/international-comparativestudy-engineering-education-india, Washington DC: World Bank , 2013.
TCS. Foundation for Excellence in Higher Education and Research in India: A Voluntary Initiative.
Tata Consultancy Services, 2002.
Thorat, Sukhadeo, and Chittaranjan Senapati. Reservation in Employment, Education and
Legislature - Status and Emerging Issues. Working Paper Series Volume II, No 05, New
Delhi: Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, 2007.
Thyagarajan Committee. Report of the UGC expert committee to formulate Action Plan on "Reforms
of Affiliating System". New Delhi: University Grants Commission , 2011.
UGC. Guidelines for Autonomous Colleges during the Eleventh Plan Period (2007-2012): As
modified upto Jan 2013. New Delhi: University Grants Commission, 2013.
UGC. Higher Education at a Glance. http://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/6805988_HEglance2013.pdf,
New Delhi: University Grants Commission, 2013.
Vora, Nikhil, and Shweta Dewan. Indian Education Sector: Long way from Graduation.
http://www.educomp.com/DataImages/Downloads/Education%20Sector%20%20Jan09.pdf, Mumbai: IDFC-SSKI Securities Ltd., 2009.
110
111
World Bank. Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise. Washington D. C.: The
Task Force on Higher Education and Society, World Bank, 2000.
Yashpal Committee. Report of The committee to Advise on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher
Education. http://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/YPC-Report_0.pdf, New Delhi:
Ministry of Human Resource Development, 2009.
L IST OF T ABLES
Table 1: Challenges and Action Points identified by the Board and Faculty of CoEP .................... 30
Table 2: Goals set by the college in the year 2009 ........................................................................ 31
Table 3: Composition of the present Board of Governors of CoEP ................................................ 33
Table 4: A comparison of various academic parameters at CoEP and IIT Bombay in 2005-06...... 36
Table 5: Comparison of the Quality of Academics before Autonomy and Now .............................. 40
Table 6: Sanctioned strength and Current strength of faculty before and after Autonomy ............. 41
Table 7: Number and Educational qualification of Faculty before and after Autonomy .................. 41
Table 8: Breakup of Faculty Development programmes conducted, by Department ...................... 43
Table 9: Number of Short-term programmes conducted by various departments towards
Professional Development of faculty after receiving autonomy ...................................................... 44
Table 10: Data regarding Research and Consulting activities........................................................ 46
Table 11: Partial list of Patents (Indian) applied/ obtained by CoEP ........................................... 47
Table 12: Growth of student intake and programmes at CoEP - Before and After Autonomy ........ 56
Table 13: MOUs with Industry (Partial List) ................................................................................... 78
Table 14: MOUs with Institutions (Partial List) ............................................................................... 80
Table 15: RoI on CoEP relative to the IITs for some key benchmarks ........................................... 84
Table 16: Admission Quality : Number of students in different percentile range .......................... 100
Acknowledgements
A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Work on this report began with a phone call from Dr Kohlis office in early Dec 2012, asking us to visit College
of Engineering Pune and then come and see him. We met him some 2 weeks later at which time he spelt out
the entire value proposition in the first few minutes of our conversation. Replication of CoEPs success in
other colleges by scaling out the mentoring that CoEP got from IIT Bombay was the thought uppermost on
his mind. Since then we have had many meetings with him to piece together the story of the transformation
of CoEP, and we are grateful for each and every one of them. We always left his office feeling the same way
we did the very first time amazed at how much he cared for the country and for its young people. His
interests span a whole range of issues that are critical for the development of India quality of education,
the power sector which he calls my original profession, renewable energy technologies, agriculture, adult
literacy and of course computer hardware and software.
Thank you so much Dr Kohli for this wonderful opportunity to work alongside you. You have given us a
lifetime worth of inspiration during these past two years. Special thanks also to Shital for setting up all our
meetings with Dr Kohli and for sharing all the necessary documents.
Many people have contributed to this report in different ways. First and foremost we are grateful to Dr Anil
Sahasrabudhe and many faculty members of CoEP for helping us bring some of the spirit and the excitement
of the transformation of the college to readers. They were not only meticulous in providing us detailed
information about their experiences, but also held us to high standards by insisting that the document could
be further improved, right till the very end. We also met student teams from Baja and Robotics, the Vinod
Doshi scholars, attended their Regatta festival and the Firodia Karandak theatre competition.
Many members of the Board of Governors of CoEP Dr Sanjay Dhande, Mr Maitreya Doshi, Prof W.N. Gade,
Mr Pratap Pawar, Dr Uday Salunkhe and Dr B.S.Sonde gave us their perspectives and we would like to thank
them.
It was critical for us to understand the role played by IIT Bombay and several people helped us with it. We
would like to thank Dr Ashok Misra, Prof R.M. Shevgaonkar and Prof Kannan Moudgalya of IIT Bombay and
Prof Ashok Jhujhunwala of IIT Madras.
Many well-known academics, experts, educators and well-wishers gave us a lot of encouragement. These
include Mr Pankaj Baliga, Dr Anil Kakodkar, Dr R.A. Mashelkar, Prof Sanjoy Mitter, Prof Roddam Narasimha,
Prof D.B. Phatak, Mr J.S. Sahariya and many others. Some of them read early versions of our report and gave
us detailed inputs that helped strengthen the final document. For this we are most grateful to Dr M.V.Atre,
Prof Gautam Biswas, Dr Om Deshmukh, Prof Ashok Jhujhunwala and Mr Ashok Kalbag. Prof M.S. Ananth
graciously read the last draft of the report and gave us detailed feedback for which we cannot thank him
enough. The final report is richer and more accurate as a result.
Finally we would like to thank Gaurav Agarwal, M.N. Gharat, Vinukumar Ranganathan, our colleagues Radha
Viswanathan, Adithi Murlidhar, Ameya Pimpalkhare, our Chairman Shri Sudheendra Kulkarni, and the entire
team at ORF Mumbai for a passionate, creative and fun-filled work environment.
-
Leena, Aparna, December 2014
112
113
A BOUT ORF M UMBAI

Observer Research Foundation (ORF) is a leading independent, non-partisan, public policy thinktank that was established in New Delhi in 1990 by R.K. Mishra, a widely respected public figure. In
its journey of twenty years, ORF has brought together leading Indian policy makers, academics,
public figures, social activists and business leaders to discuss various issues of national importance.
ORF scholars have produced a large body of critically acclaimed publications and made significant
contributions toward improving government policies. The Mumbai office was started in 2004.
Since 2010, when Shri Sudheendra Kulkarni took over as the chairman, ORF Mumbai has reoriented its research and advocacy towards more socially relevant areas: Education, Public Health,
Urban Renewal, Inclusive and Sustainable Development, Youth Development and Promotion of Arts,
Heritage and Culture. Some of ORF Mumbais recent research reports include:
Toilet Torture in Mumbais Slums.
Mumbais Shame: How under nutrition and poor sanitation are stunting the growth of children
in Mumbais structured and unstructured slums.
Uncle, the School in himself
Whither Science education in Indian Colleges? Urgent reforms to meet the challenges of a
knowledge society
Thinking out of the Box in Education What India can learn from Israel
Solar mini-grids for Rural Electrification: A Roadmap to 100% Energy Access for India@75
From Seclusion and Exclusion to Inclusion: Indian Muslim Women and their Initiatives
An Urgent Call to improve Mental Healthcare in India: A case study of M.B. Barvalia
Foundations Commendable Work.
Time is Running Out: Does Mumbai have Enough Water?
Domestic Violence as a Womens Health Issue: Role of Primary Prevention
Masked Identities: Safeguarding Indias Intangible Cultural Heritage
Reforms in Medical Education to Promote Accessible and Affordable Healthcare for All.
Making the Sewer a River Again... Why Mumbai Must Reclaim its Mithi
Moving People: Why Mumbai Needs a Bus Rapid Transport System (BRTS)
ORF Mumbais mission statement is: Ideas and Action for a Better India. It champions the cause
of balanced socio-economic development and a better quality of life for all Indians. It also works
towards strengthening Indias democratic institutions so that they can become more responsible,
responsive and sensitive to the needs and concerns of common people, especially those from the
most vulnerable sections of society.

Excellence Through Autonomy: Transformation of College of Engineering Pune Into An IIT-like Institution

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Excellence Through Autonomy: Transformation of College of Engineering Pune Into An IIT-like Institution

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Excellence through Authonomy