Professor Krishna Vedula, Special Assistant to Provost for International Partnerships at the University of Massachusetts Lowell   is well recognized globally for his contributions to engineering education, research, administration and outreach. He is internationally recognized for his research in processing and properties of materials for high temperature applications, with particular emphasis on powder processing and intermetallic compounds and environmental effects. Dr. Vedula is currently the co-founder and executive director of the Indo-US Collaboration in Engineering Education (IUCEE) initiated by American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). IUCEE has the objective of improving the quality and global relevance of engineering education in India and the US. He is also the President-Elect of International Federation for Engineering Education Societies (IFEES)
Dr. Vedula has B.Tech (IIT Bombay, India, 1967), M.S. (Drexel University, 1969) and Ph.D. (Michigan Tech University, 1980) degrees in Materials/Metallurgical Engineering.

The IUCEE has developed a "train the trainer" program to build partnerships with excellent faculty from American Universities and Indian Universities to raise the standard of Indian education. Dr. Vedula spoke to Lokvani about the challenges and opportunities in the higher education sector.


What motivated you to develop the "train the trainer" program?

The world needs good quality engineering talent in order to find solutions to the global challenges facing humanity such as energy, environment, health and communications. I believe that a partnership between the world’s largest democracy (India) and the world’s most advanced democracy (US) has amazing potential in this regard. India has an enormous amount of raw talent to address these needs. However, the rapid expansion of engineering educational institutions in India in recent years has created serious problems of maintaining quality engineering education and research to sustain and fuel economic growth in India itself. 

In order to address this need, I facilitated the founding of the Indo US Collaboration for Engineering Education (IUCEE) program with support from University of Massachusetts Lowell, the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), International Federation for Engineering Education Societies (IFEES) and the Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE). IUCEE was actually conceptualized by over 150 leaders of engineering education and businesses, including many IITans from US and India in 2007. The vision is to improve the quality and global relevance of engineering research and education in India by imbibing of global best practices from the US with help of best faculty members. The goal is to build a solid base by strengthening the four pillars of education: 1) learner-centric teaching; 2) research excellence; 3) outcomes based quality supported by accreditation and 4) innovation and entrepreneurship. 

The “train the trainer”  model is being used for the first pillar of this effort with emphasis on building capacity to improve the teaching quality of faculty in the large number of engineering colleges by introducing state-of-the-art concepts of problem based and outcomes based approaches to teaching and learning. This is being implemented with the leadership of experienced Indian faculty in collaboration with US faculty experts. Simultaneously, the culture of research among these colleges is being enhanced via the resulting networks and collaborations between the US and Indian institutions, thereby increasing the capacity of the Indian institutions to engage in world-class research addressing crucial problems facing India and world, mentioned earlier. The corporates and government institutions are playing a key role in this PP (Public Private) partnering process in order to ensure relevance to societal needs. 

This process is under way already during the past two years with more than $ 1.3 million (Rs. 6.5 Crores) financial support from two philanthropic families, one from US (Deshpandes) and the other from India (Narayana Murthys) and in-kind support worth more than Rs. 1 Crore ($ 200,000) from Infosys Technologies. The large pool of engineering educators and entrepreneurs of Indian origin in the US, particularly from the prestigious IITs, has enabled the momentum to be built and sustained.

 Could you describe the model used in this program? 

The model is very simple and effective. Each year, international experts from the US go to India to discuss global best practices in teaching and research in their field with Indian faculty leaders from IITs, NITs and other top public & top private colleges in one-week workshops at Faculty Leadership Institutes (FLI). Select Indian faculty leaders then conduct regional workshops on these topics for faculty in second and third tier colleges in their subjects all over India.

During the 2008 FLI and 2009 FLIs (both conducted at the Infosys Technologies Global Education Centre), over 36 professors from US and 10 industry experts have given 46 workshops to about 585 and 580 faculty members respectively. In 2008, an average of four workshops were conducted in parallel over a six week duration (May to July). In 2009, an average of eight workshops were conducted in parallel over a three week period (June/July). During 2008-2009, Indian faculty participants from 2008 FLI conducted roughly 100 regional workshops directly impacting more than 3000 other faculty and 30,000 students. After 2009 FLI, more than 100 additional regional workshops have already been reported. Videotapes and course materials from US experts were used as resources. Many others have been impacted indirectly through resulting college level curriculum revisions. 15 IUCEE Regional Centers have been set up all over India to coordinate the follow up. Extensive follow up within colleges and regions as well as documented outcomes assessment is continuously emphasized as measures of success. Partnerships have been built with various agencies which are already engaged in similar efforts, such as NPTEL program of IITs and the TEQIP program of MHRD.

US experts who participated are globally recognized for teaching and research and many have written text books used in India. Significant positive outcomes have been demonstrated with over 200 colleges all over India. Some amazing results of radical curriculum revisions resulting from teams of participants at the 2008 FLI and 2009 FLI have been documented. One such success story is at the BVB College of Engineering in Hubli, Karnataka, which has recently become autonomous and where all the college Faculty has become immersed in transforming the culture of engineering education, with support from their leadership. Dramatic improvements in student motivation and academic achievements as well as faculty engagement have been documented.

 What specific challenges do you hope to address via this program? 

The central challenge we are addressing (and already making a big impact) is the poor quality of engineering graduates in many of the second and third year engineering colleges in India and the related problem of low numbers of engineering PhDs in India. We plan to build on the phenomenal success of the first two years of improving the quality of teaching using “train the trainer approach” in order to reach a much larger number of faculty and colleges. As a result of strengthening the first pillar of capacity building by improving teaching quality, networks have been created between Indian and US faculty and institutions which are already resulting in research collaborations wherein Indian faculty seeking PhD degrees have found co-guides among the US faculty. The second pillar of research excellence is being launched in the form of an IUCEE Co-Guide PhD program this year. Indian faculty will be able to obtain high quality PhDs, in 4-year duration, with the help of distinguished US faculty co-guides. Resulting research collaborations between Indian and US faculty, enabled by faculty exchanges and distance education technologies will allow large scale PhD production and research productivity. Simultaneously, IUCEE is beginning to address the other two pillars for improving the quality and global relevance of engineering education by assisting with the implementation of a globally acceptable accreditation system for engineering education as well as a model for innovation and entrepreneurship adapted to the societal needs of Indian and the global economy. 

Is this a sustainable and scalable operation?

Yes the program is definitely sustainable and scalable, but it will need the support and cooperation of all the stake holders. Although the work of IUCEE has only recently begun, the real results of the efforts on the ground and the enormous momentum it has generated make us believe that dramatic results can be achieved in a reasonable time period.  IUCEE and UMass Lowell seek Government of India assistance in order to sustain the program and scale it up in order to reach the very large numbers of engineering colleges throughout India. Private support is also being sought in order to make this a truly PPP (Public Private Partnership) model.  UMass Lowell proposes to transform the IUCEE model into an International School for Engineering Education (ISEE) with ambitious targets. Within the next five years, the goal is to create 5 regional campuses of ISEE, with emphasis on all four pillars of engineering education and bring about significant transformations in over 1000 institutions all over India.  This will be accomplished in stages starting with the 2010 Faculty Leadership Institute, which is being planned to be conducted in a distributed manner at several potential sites for future ISEE campuses.

 
Are there benefits accrued to the faculty members who serve as trainers which motivates these leading lights to give up so much of their time for this effort?

Most certainly. There are enormous benefits to our US faculty members who serve as trainers. US faculty and engineering colleges benefit in many ways from the resulting contacts and collaborations with Indian faculty, colleges as well as industry (particularly the multinationals). US colleges depend on a supply of high quality students from India, both at the graduate and undergraduate level. The IUCEE program helps nurture this supply. Not only does this provide talent needed for research at the US institutions, but it creates the environment for US students at our institutions to become globally prepared professionals. As a result of participation in the IUCEE program, US faculty have already been able to establish significant collaborations for research, faculty exchanges, student exchanges, joint degree programs and study abroad programs. The grand challenges the world faces can only be addressed through such collaborations.
 
 Has any of the training been captured and perhaps transformed into learning objects that can used by others who may not have had the opportunity to be physically present at the event?

Yes, this was a high priority in the implementation. A significant investment has been made at both the 2008 FLI and the 2009 FLI, to capture all the lectures in the form of high quality videotapes. In addition, all the US faculty experts were willing to share their course related materials in the form of Powerpoint slides and word documents. Videotapes from 2008 FLI were provided to faculty participants for review and for use in regional workshops. Several colleges used EduSAT facilities to help their faculty view the lectures live during 2008 FLI. During the 2009 FLI we have been able to integrate videos with ppt slides with the help of an Indian company, which had developed the software. These are now being supplied to participants and their colleges at a nominal cost. We expect that several faculty who were not present at the workshops as well as a large number of students will directly benefit from these E-Learning Kits. These Kits are also being made available to faculty and colleges all over the world with the help of International Federation for Engineering Education Societies (IFEES). Plans are in progress to make these materials easily downloadable from the Internet.

 
Providing quality higher education at a large scale is a problem that even the US is grappling with. In there special learning that you gleaned as you were trying to implement this program in India that could inform educators in the US?

This is a very important dimension, which has tremendous potential. Several of the US faculty experts and observers pointed this out after witnessing the enthusiasm and reports of incredible outcomes by the Indian faculty participants. In particular, the 90 Indian faculty who participated in 2008 FLI and were invited to participate in 2009 FLI reported radical transformations in their own approach to teaching and the learning by the students in their colleges, as a consequence of their participation in 2008 FLI UCEE programs. These kinds of transformations in the teaching and learning environment are not common and are needed in many of our own institutions of higher education in the US as well. Several areas can be explored further, including the pedagogy of focusing on students learning and the effective use of technologies to motivate and sustain the self learning by students with different learning styles. Another critical area with potential is the use of service learning and community related engineering projects for better learning by the students and for them to become better innovators for addressing global challenges.


What can readers of Lokvani do to help in this effort ?

Readers of Lokvani can make extremely valuable contributions to this effort in a variety of different ways. Readers who are recognized for their excellence in teaching and/or research in specific fields of engineering can become part of the ‘Train the Trainer Program’ and go to India to give workshops to faculty and students in India. Others can offer to be guides for PhD candidates in India as part of the Co-Guide PhD program. Others may be able willing to give lectures at colleges when they visit India for social reasons. IUCEE will be glad to coordinate any such efforts. In fact, an IUCEE portal is being developed, which will have a “shaadi.com” feature for connecting the people in India and the US for a variety of collaborations. Another important area that readers of Lokvani can help is in making the IUCEE effort financially sustainable. We have been offering stipends and travel expenses for the US experts from private donations from two families. We need to broaden our base of support.

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