PENTAWII Workshop on Environmental Assessment

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PENTA-WII Workshop on Environmental Assessment
EIA Curriculum in Engineering Courses in India
Effectiveness, Challenges and Opportunities

• Indra N Sinha
• Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur

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Subject wise growth rate

• about 7.2 of the university enrolled students
  study engineering
• highly skewed with about 75 of the intake
  capacity in Computer Science, Electronics and
  Information Technology related areas

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Subject wise growth rate

• The IT related disciplines do not indulge much in
  teaching of environment.
• growth of environmental engineering education has
  not been commensurate with the growth in
  engineering education

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courses in environmental studies

• General Course in Environmental Studies
• BSc and MSc courses in Environmental Science
• B.E./ BTech Course in
• Environmental Engineering
• Environmental Science and Engineering
• ME/ MTech course in
• Environmental Engineering
• Environmental Science and Engineering
• Environmental Management
• Post graduate diploma course in
• Environmental Monitoring
• Industrial Pollution Control
• Environmental Management

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EIA Curriculum in Engineering Courses

• Courses in environment related area include a
  subject on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
  
• pioneering role in teaching of environmental
  science and engineering was played by IIT Mumbai
• subsequently leadership was taken by the IIT
  ensemble
• it may be worthwhile to review the EIA input
  provided by these institutes

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PG Programmes at IITs

• All the IITs offer M.Tech Programme in
  Environment
• Environmental Science and Engineering at IIT
  Bombay
• Environment Engineering and Management at IIT
  Delhi
• Environmental Engineering and Management at IIT
  Kharagpur
• Environmental Engineering and Management at IIT
  Kanpur
• Environmental Engineering at IIT Madras
• Environmental Engineering at IIT Guwahati
• Environmental Engineering at IIT Roorkee

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Characteristic features

• EIA is taught in some form or other
• the intent and content of such EIA subjects vary
  widely
• IITs do not teach EIA as a core subject, it is
  offered as elective
• the course contents
• generally descriptive
• do not provide adequate scope for insight
  development on the complexities of impact
  assessment
• absence of forward and backward linkage with
  other subjects
• the principal task before educators would be to
  inculcate EIA as a decision making tool to ensure
  environmental sustainability

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What are the expectations?

• an effective teaching-learning exercise in EIA
  should enable the learner
• to understand and to adhere to local, regional,
  national and global sustainability criteria.
• to have a clear understanding of the criteria to
  identify projects likely to have significant
  implications for environmental sustainability so
  that EIA studies are carried out for all such
  projects
• to bring out completely the nature of impact
  (short or long-term, permanent or reversible,
  positive or negative impacts, etc.)

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What are the expectations?

• an effective teaching-learning exercise in EIA
  should enable the learner
• to identify and measure indirect impacts,
  cumulative impacts, etc.
• to distinguish between significant and
  insignificant impacts and ability to measure
  significance
• to provide adequately for selection of preferred
  alternative by comparison based on unambiguous
  criteria

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What are the expectations?

• an effective teaching-learning exercise in EIA
  should enable the learner
• to compare against carrying capacity
• to have a clear understanding of the
  institutional arrangement the specific,
  mandatory and enforceable laws must be
  unambiguously interpreted
• to design a transparent decision making process
  and ability to back stipulations, - in the
  environmental clearance, by an effective
  compliance monitoring

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Challenges ahead

• two significant opportunities in the next ten
  years
• Manufacturing Services Outsourcing
• Engineering Services Outsourcing
• For India to make the most of these opportunities
• the number of engineers has to be increased
• the quality enhanced

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Challenges ahead

• apart from the few elite institutes, engineering
  education in India is often outdated and
  irrelevant
• most graduates do not possess the skills needed
  to compete in the economy
• industries have been facing a consistent skills
  deficit
• most institutes fail to attract and retain
  quality faculty
• These deficiencies in Technical/ Engineering
  education mean that India runs the risk of
  missing out on the significant opportunities

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Challenges ahead

• Major problems
• Non availability of professionals in new and
  emerging areas
• Obsolescence of equipment
• Failure of system to attract quality teachers
• Inadequacy of financial resources
• Inadequacy of state policy for training and
  retraining of faculty and staff
• Lack of flexibility to students and autonomy to
  the institutions

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Challenges ahead

• Major problems
• Lack of reliable technical manpower forecasting
  and its linkages with technical education system
• Inadequate industry participation
• Lack of research and development culture in many
  engineering institutions
• Static curricula

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Challenges ahead

• Teaching of environmental engineering is
  generally imparted at the postgraduate level
• Teaching of EIA has not been identified as a
  specialization area
• Rising Industrial Base Command and Control Set
  up
• Acute Shortage of educators
• Acute shortage of trained EIA manpower
• Near total absence of EIA courses
• Acute shortage of infrastructure
• The country is running against time to catch up
  with the opportunities prevailing in the global
  village

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Opportunities from the PENTA project

• To meet the challenge in the EIA sector India has
  to benefit from the late starters advantage by
  grasping the opportunities available
• The PENTA project offers one such opportunity
• the EA courses in EU are both attractive and
  relevant
• This is more so because our command and control
  structure resembles those prevailing in Europe
• Our aim should be to find a win-win situation for
  both India and EU

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Opportunities from the PENTA project

• A beginning may be made by introducing
  collaborative programmes in teaching/ research in
  environmental assessment
• Indian universities are carrying out some work on
  conventional EIA
• Cumulative effects assessment and strategic
  environmental assessment remain neglected
• the need to introduce structured educational
  programme encompassing the entire gamut of EA/
  SEA can not be neglected

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Opportunities from the PENTA project

• Collaborative programme may also be for
  preparation of educational products
• Collaborating Indian institutes can
• spread information on EA education in EU
• promote the diversity of opportunity for
  international students to follow Master
  programmes in EU versities.
• The task of networking of Indian and EU
  university audience may be undertaken on priority
  basis
• A workshop like this can be the curtain raiser
  and many more can follow

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Expected Benefits

• Gearing up of the Technical Education Sector to
  meet the EIA manpower requirement for
• the Indian Industry
• Indian RD houses etc
• Overseas countries
• With appropriate background teaching in India
  students may be oriented to undertake higher
  studies/ research in EU universities

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Expected Benefits

• Indian universities will be able to raise quality
  standards and achieve world-class excellence by
  international benchmarking in the midst of big
  expansion and thus would meet a major challenge

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Expected Benefits

• Curricular modernization/ revisions/ innovations,
  for greater employability of Indian graduates
• In view of the stiff global competition this is a
  major challenge
• By entering into faculty exchange programmes
  Indian technological Institutes can reduce the
  shortage of qualified and competent faculty.
• this has been identified as the most pertinent
  issue in the development of the technical
  education system in the country
• Currently the teacher to student ratio is quite
  inadequate

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Expected Benefits

• In the coming days research and development will
  be a challenge
• emphasis will be on research on problems of
  industrial relevance
• Improving the number of doctorates and setting up
  of technology incubators in identified premier
  institutions shall be the focus area for India.
• Collaboration with EU universities through the
  PENTA route may be helpful

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Expected Benefits

• Networking/ sharing of knowledge/ competency
  shall be a major challenge for overall growth and
  development of technical education system
• A few Indian hubs with direct collaboration with
  the PENTA project can have wide positive
  ramifications in this area

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THANK YOU