(Top) An artist’s impression of a resort in Singapore. An architecture student at a workshop

Design education in eastern India is way behind the profession as compared to other parts of India. Teaching a professional course has always been difficult and educationists the world over have been debating over the right approach to design education.

Is it good enough to teach theory of design in classrooms and expose the students to different aspects of the profession in real-life situation?

The answer to the question lies in the teaching philosophy of the institutes. Do teachers take responsibility of the students’ performance after they graduate? Or is it good enough to show them how to achieve good grades in the exams?

Design is a vast subject overlapping related fields of law, environment, psychology and energy efficiency. Many people contend that it is difficult to teach a subject with so much diversity and that the teacher can only take the horse to the water but can’t make it drink.

But these are words of a pessimist with varied shades of escapism. In a changing world, design education has to change and evolve constantly. And to not do so would mean settling into obsolescence.

The problems related to design education can be categorised into five segments — a) admission procedure, b) curriculum, c) teaching methods, d) exposure to international trends and e) professional training.

The admission procedure is important as interest and aptitude of the student are essential ingredients for design education.

Intelligence is often confused with creativity and the design institutes of eastern India have a clear bias towards intelligence in their admission tests. As a result, students in the first year are extremely intelligent, but not necessarily creative. Therefore, the teachers are always trying their best to convert intelligence into creativity.

However, such attempts are futile as either the teachers themselves are not creative enough or the students are not able to achieve the desired level of creativity.

Practising architects now feel that the admission test for architecture has to be designed separately to attract and induct students with a flair for design.

The entrance test for architecture in Jadavpur University and Bengal Engineering and Science University has recently been revised but it can be improved further by comparing it with similar tests conducted by design institutes in India and abroad.

The curriculum needs to be changed with more industry-oriented subjects. Architects now should specialise at the graduation level itself in related fields like administration, teaching and theory, real estate development, construction, environment and ecology, disaster mitigation and computer application.

A student can go through the first three years studying basics of design and construction for a diploma and should be sent for a compulsory training of 12 to 18 months to get exposure to all the related fields.

His training period may be divided into three-month modules at different offices with a design-office training being mandatory.

After training, the student should be allowed to choose a field of specialisation for his graduation degree or start working as a diploma holder. He should be given the option of completing his degree with specialisation within the next two years.

Gradually, the subjects should start becoming more relevant to the industry.

Campus interviews can be introduced for graduates, and designers will gradually get into contracting, real estate development and administration of our built and natural environment.

(The author is an architect and urban designer)