St.Vincent Palloti College of Engineering and Technology

Dr.Vivek Kute is the Head of the Department for Computer Science at St.Vincent Palloti College of Engineering and Technology. He has over 20 years of experience in the academic and industrial fields. He has guided multiple projects at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels throughout his career. 

What are the key factors that keep you connected with the education sector?

“To be at par with the changing scenario of the academic sector”

In my opinion, a teacher must be defined as someone who motivates the learner to learn. I am a teacher, who as per the newly introduced definition is a facilitator for learning. If a teacher can do this successfully then his students will be enriched with an ability to learn life-long. I try learning new things so that I can match up to the expectations of today’s learners. The last thing I would like to put here is I love teaching.

What is your philosophy of leadership? How would you describe your leadership style?

“Being the one who provides solutions when the time calls for it”

I joined St. Vincent Palloti College of Engineering and Technology in 2006 and have managed many activities since then. When I started my tenure as HoD for Computer Engineering and Information Technology, I did not have any experience in leading a team and managing a department. At first, he has to be a part of the team. I just stick to this philosophy. Many seniors and guides have helped me in that process. I would like to spell it in one line: as a leader, you have to give authority to the members as you delegate the responsibility. By that, I mean give work to people and let them manage it the way they want. Make them feel responsible. As a leader, you should be available to your subordinates in times of trouble or difficulties. 

In your experience, what can an inbound student gain from studying here in your institute?

“The advantage lies in focusing on the foundation level learning and then moving on”

I see the education system we follow in India primarily focuses on the basics of everything and keeps advanced learning open for the learners. This in my opinion is the best strategy. If the base is strong learning and using advanced technologies or for that matter, anything becomes very easy. I always feel that we must produce learners and not laborers. It is important to build the base or core for an individual’s career ahead. Being an engineering institute our students need to get good exposure to the industry as well. Most of our students have a life goal to acquire and a good job in a reputed industry. Keeping these two aspects in mind we focus on strong academics to build a strong base and widen industry exposure so that students should get knowledge of the latest developments. This makes our students compatible with others.

How does the curriculum of St. Vincent Palloti College of Engineering and Technology ensure the best practice of industry?

“Industry based-projects as a necessary part of the curriculum”

As said earlier, the best performance in academics can be achieved through discipline and well-defined academics. But to get wide industry exposure students are required to learn the industry environments. In session 2013-14, at the Department of Computer Engineering, we started to send final year students to industries for building their projects. The final year students must take up a project to complete their degree. It was the concept of internship which was officially brought in by AICTE in 2014-16. In the very first attempt, our efforts have yielded the desired results. We were able to send more than 50% of our final year students to the industry in the first year itself, to get real-life experience of the best practices there. A significant number of MOUs with industry is the result of our continuous efforts since 2013. Today 100% of students complete their internships and 60%+ internships get converted to industry-based projects. Also in the last few years, students have started earning internships. Many get placements as a result of their disciplined efforts. 

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What do you think your roles and responsibilities to the University and the students are?

“Bringing in and embracing the transition from the traditional methods of teaching”

I started with the teacher's definition as per my perspective. Being a teacher in an engineering institute for more than 20 years I witnessed the change in students and their learning attitude. It’s the learning ability of the students rather than attitude. I now find myself more as a facilitator than a teacher or lecturer. New dimensions are introduced to teaching-learning today because of the enormous amount of information available to everyone at their fingertips. The university/institute along with the faculty members also have to become accustomed to this new change. Now our role has become multi-faceted where we as a teacher and as a leader have to become more compliant and transform our thought process. I would like to quote an example here, as if I look five years back, even being a faculty member of Computer Engineering I had a thought that chalk and talk are best for teaching. Believe me today I use pre-recorded videos for teaching. After every video, I give a small quiz based on video content. I believe that everyone among us has to adopt this mechanism for teaching. I am well aware of the fact that it increases the workload for teachers. But I think it is always better to start early. 

What do you think should be the University’s top priority over the next 10 years?

“To introduce a system that functions as a dynamic environment”

Because the education system is perceived by learners today, the adoption of technology is the key to success. As it is rightly said that change is the only consistent thing in the world, technologies used today are going to change sooner or later. We need to keep updating ourselves. I feel that universities must plan the system for a five-year duration; in fact, the planning must be batch wise. The generation today calls for change every day. The strategies for academic conductions and technology adoptions should be different for each batch. Amplified usage of technologies in teaching and focus on teachers being facilitators is what I wish to see in universities in the coming times. Also, modification of the evaluation system is another aspect that needs serious thought to be given to. Short and small evaluations are the demand of the hour.

When you first came to St. Vincent Palloti College of Engineering and Technology, what was your vision for the university? Has it evolved, and how far along in implementing that vision are you?

“To become the best of its kind”

I joined St. Vincent Palloti College of Engineering and Technology with a vision to explore new possibilities of teaching and learning. I always felt that the institute will provide me a scope to give shape to my thoughts. During these years I tried to implement all that I had in mind. Of course, I faced some difficulties but I can confidently say that the institute is open to new ideas and allows those ideas to become a reality. One of such things, I already shared, was regarding providing the facility of industry exposure to students. Initially, it started with very few students but now I am happy to say that almost all of the students are connected with a minimum of one industry. The list of ideas and the same becoming a reality is long but it is certainly not impossible. We are trying to keep pace with the changes happening. I think the institute is consistently leading to becoming one of the best institutes in the country. The current students and alumni involvement as a member of all crucial committees at the institute is one of the best things available.

What would you like people to know about your university they may not know?

“Knowing what we want and set the right path for them”

During my interactions with people from different sections of society, I find most people are aware of good things happening at St. Vincent Palloti College of Engineering and Technology. People appreciate the efforts we put in for academics and towards building learners. Here I would like again to reiterate a few things which particularly engineering aspirants and their parents need to know. To keep up with the pace with the development of technology and changing demands, the institute has taken many initiatives in previous years and similar efforts are continued. Every engineering aspirant has one goal in mind and that is to make such a career that will make life easy. Almost all choose to opt for jobs/placements. Some may go for higher studies after engineering and then wish to target the goal of job placement. During engineering, it happens that the learner whose goal is to target higher studies immediately after engineering is also trained for the things which may not be suitable for him at that time. He/she may want to learn something which will take them closer to their career goal. Keeping this in mind we have started the Know Your Student activity, where we interact with an individual learner to know his/her career goal or to help them to set a goal. Once we know about it we divide students into categories based on their goals. This makes it easy for us to organize the right training for the right people. This activity has helped us in the manner that we can say now that 100% of our students who were interested in placements are placed. More than 35% of students who opted for higher studies can qualify for admissions.

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What are some of the biggest challenges you see, both for higher education in general and for St. Vincent Palloti College of Engineering and Technology specifically?

“Managing and fulfilling the expectations of the upcoming professionals”

Adoption of technical changes in higher education is the biggest challenge we have now and it will grow in near future. The world has become a global village. This adds up to challenges not only for the engineering community but for all streams. Secondly, now we do not find branch-specific jobs. You cannot guarantee that a mechanical engineer will make his career in the mechanical industry. So there are no field boundaries today. To manage this education system has to change itself. The new education policy introduced recently has a mechanism to adapt to the changing technology demands a bit. To be more specific in countries like India, it is really difficult to adjust to the New Education Policy considering the infrastructure. I am sure with time new mechanisms will be made to make it successful.

Any suggestions you would like to give to the current youth and the aspiring students?

“Make the most of out the resources”

All of today’s aspirants have to be good learners. To be a good learner one needs to be a good observer. To be a good observer one needs to be a good listener. Today the concept of keeping a target of one job and working in a single job for a lifetime has changed. I feel everyone today has to acquire multiple skills. In the future, there will be more demands and fewer resources. The target for becoming an asset and not labor.

What are some plans that you’re currently or will be designing for St. Vincent Palloti College of Engineering and Technology international affairs and students?

“To bring up courses that target skill building”

To keep up with the pace, the institute has planned to introduce few courses in the coming years. The courses will target fields such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, and Cyber Security. Also, the institute is trying to get autonomous status which will make it easy for us to enhance skill development activities. Accreditations like NBA and NAAC have given a great opportunity for the institute to develop a system to ripen globally competent engineers.