IMPORTANCE OF TEACHING IN ENHANCING THE QUALITY OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION

The economic success of any country is directly determined by the quality of Higher Education system prevailing. A developed nation is inevitably an educated nation. Indian higher education system is the third largest in the world, next to the United States and China. The sector, in recent decades, has witnessed a tremendous growth in many aspects such as the institutional capacity, student enrolment, teaching – learning process, teacher-student ratio, etc. The rapid expansion of the Engineering education system, at the same time, has brought several pertinent issues related to equity, efficiency, excellence and access to higher education in the country. The key factors that influence the quality of higher education is the quality of faculty, curriculum, infrastructure available, research environment, accreditation, administrative policies, funding, methods of evaluation and good governance. For study purposes 25 Engineering Colleges from within the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Telengana and Kerala were taken and their faculty members were considered as the population. Twelve teachers from each institute were taken as the sample of the study. The survey was accomplished through students as they were considered tougher evaluators of the teachers so the selection of the good teachers was completed on the basis of the five common competencies such subject knowledge and subject area teaching, teaching and learning, research work and professional behaviour / ethics.