On Monday, The Indian Express reported that the survey, undertaken between last September and June 7, has found that first year engineering students are struggling with maths more than any other core subject. It has also recommended structural reforms in the civil engineering branch which lags behind other disciplines.

Prof Poonia, serving in his current post since January 2017, spoke to Sourav Roy Barman on a range of subjects. Excerpts:

Why was PARAKH launched?

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The industry is looking for problem-solving, decision-making abilities among students. They want students capable of critical thinking, offering fresh ideas. The objective of PARAKH is improving higher order thinking skills among students. We are also testing academic skills but it is more about assessing to what extent students can tackle unknown problems. It goes beyond improving the employability factor of students.

How have you tried to address the problem of not enough engineering graduates getting jobs?

If you are able to solve solutions, people will run after you with jobs. See, if the industry says that a student lacks ability after he leaves the education system, it is of no value. Issues should be addressed while the student is in the system. We can take corrective measures then, be it in the form of syllabus change, changes in teaching-learning process, internships to make a student industry-ready so that a student is technically sound and professionally-competent.

How was PARAKH designed?

We followed the Bloom’s Taxonomy model in drawing up the questions. Around 40,000 to 45,000 teachers were trained to create a question bank for the test. The involvement of industry is not much in the question drafting process for now but we are trying to address that aspect also.

Has campus placements gone up in recent years?

Yes, it has gone up in recent years. Around 53 per cent of students get campus placements now.

Has the moratorium on opening of new engineering colleges been of any help?

It does not matter much because in the last 6-7 years, the number of colleges has remained constant because while some shut down, many also opened under certain categories like in aspirational districts (where the moratorium is not applicable). Overall in technical education, there are around 10,000 institutes with an annual intake capacity of 32 lakh. We register around 19-20 lakh admissions of which 15 lakh students pass and 6-7 lakh students get jobs. Around 10-12 lakh seats remain vacant.