We are living in an age of change. The pace of change in the last decade of the last century has significantly accelerated. Rising educational and technical skill levels, technological innovations that allow ideas to circulate, and the forces of globalization and liberalization have all contributed to such changes. A transformation of the way courses are delivered, the pedagogy that is used and the assessment that is done is thus also required. It requires continuous education, collaboration, team work and a ‘clan’ culture. Skill and quality consciousness and its continuous improvement are to be developed at all levels of education, training and management. The National Policy on Education (NPE) 1986 of Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India also envisaged the promotion of Continuing Education (CE) with the prime objective of adopting CE as a national culture and making it a recognized activity of all technical educational institutes.
Continuing Education (CE) is a global phenomenon and many countries have taken full advantage of CE concept particularly for the development of Technical Manpower Resources of the country, keeping pace with the continuous technological developments around the world. The need of CE education in the country is growing substantially as education imparted by some of the institutions is often being questioned on the quality. The faculty and graduates of these institutes need to be substantiated with further quality inputs. This need can be met by CCE in non-formal mode.
The culture of research and development cannot be inculcated unless the attention is focused on the development of technical education and further enhancement of technical knowledge through continuing education. The knowledge and skills acquired through the formal systems of technical education must be directed towards development of technology in order to achieve economic development and self-sufficiency. The need for adopting modern technologies and continuing upgradation of such technologies in industrial application to sustain economic development cannot be over emphasized. Thus there is a huge need for faculty development both in terms of pedagogical development and engineering/science domain training. Currently, there is hardly any systematic and evidence-based training of engineering faculty. The main objectives of CCE education programmes are
To assist faculty in Conducting seminars and workshops on various themes and policies relevant to technical education.
To assist faculty in developing course material and to disseminate the same in institutions and industry.
To assist working faculty and students in the educational institutes in widening their knowledge base and in improving their skills.
To assist the working professionals/faculty to be globally competitive and be at the cutting edge of technology by providing training and expertise in critical areas.
To promote strong industry-institute interaction.
