Energy Education Outreach Workshop

Abstract:

The event started with brief introductions by Prof. Suneet Singh (HoD, DESE) and Prof. Murugavel, (Professor-in-Charge, Institute of Eminence [IoE]) on the department and IoE activities, respectively. Participants to this workshop were invited from different IITs, NITs and universities that had energy programs (undergraduate or postgraduate) or energy departments. The workshop had sessions on energy education and energy research, where the invited participants talked about their programs and the challenges they were facing with regards to the new educational environment. e.g., NEP 2020 implementation, online course platforms and the rise of inter-disciplinary courses. There was a discussion on how to increase the industry-academia interaction in the area of energy to fulfil the following – training students to meet the future requirements of industry, doing industry-relevant research and modifying or enhancing the existing energy curriculum to make it both relevant and interesting for all the stakeholders involved. The participants also opined on the role of energy departments across the country in participating and helping the government (central or state) in formulating the energy policy and energy road map. A common challenge raised by many departments was that Energy is not listed as a requisite programme in the applications of any government organizations – hence, qualified students are missing out on employment opportunities. A need was also felt to have a common minimum curriculum for an undergraduate program in Energy and the possibility of having a GATE paper with “Energy” as the specialization – these suggestions are envisaged to overcome the employment hurdles of students graduating with “Energy” as the major.

List of Speakers: