Prof. Dr. Hari Krishna Shrestha
Nepal Engineering College, affiliated to Pokhara University, is driven by a not-for-profit motive. It was established in 2051 BS with the aim at contributing to the society with excellent engineering education. Currently, it is the largest college in terms of its intake capacity.
Prof. Er. Hari Krishna Shrestha is the Principal at Nepal Engineering College. Currently, NEC offers an array of Bachelor and Master’s degree programs. All the bachelor level courses are conducted in Changunarayan (main campus) and Master’s level courses at NEC— Center for Postgraduate Studies at Pulchowk in Lalitpur. Excerpts:
Since your involvement in the engineering field is of 27 years, how do you analyze the present status of engineering education in Nepal?
While analyzing the present status of engineering education of Nepal, we can find increasing number of institutions and diversified programs, but in the perspective of quality enhancement, we cannot find any fundamental differences. So, we can infer that there is a significant increase in quantity but no any development in quality. In addition, we can witness a surge in the number of politically influenced professional organizations in the engineering field that have promoted political negations robustly while recruiting teachers. Because of such a reason, the engineering colleges in Nepal are compelled to compromise on unnecessary things that emasculate their quality.
In your opinion, what is required for quality enhancement in the engineering education in Nepal?
Engineering education is an applied science. Only imparting theoretical education is not sufficient for enhancing quality of education rather students should be well-trained through skill-enhancing education. In addition, student exposure should be given optimal priority through field visit and research programs. Similarly, learners should be provided practical knowledge, skill and efficiency to face forth-coming challenges that may occur in their workplace while working.
What could be the possible solutions of forth-coming problems of the engineering education?
Students should be trained well according to demands of the global market. And the education should be integrated with industrial considerations. For this, the program syllabi should be revised and updated in order to fulfill demands of human resources worldwide.
What are the distinct features of Nepal Engineering College?
Nepal Engineering College is a service-motive social organization that has been registered as a community college. It has been imparting global standard quality education focusing on local context. It has managed to recruit 99 percent full-time, qualified, experienced and dedicated faculty members. It is the only one community-based campus which has been given permanent affiliation by the University. Similarly, the college hosts international seminars in order to exchange knowledge and experience of the experts of various vocations. In addition, it has given focus on hands-on education that enables students to show their exposure to the global setting. The college has established ring shear test that measures possible perils of landslides. Similarly, it has established ground acceleration for measuring earthquake magnitude. Apart from these features, the college has ultra-modern laboratories, well-furnished classrooms and a well-stocked library. More importantly, it has set a natural laboratory to teach students electricity generation procedures.
How do you acknowledge the achievement of your graduates in the global market?
Our graduates are qualitative, energetic, highly skilled and competitive. Every year around 70-80 students achieve full scholarship at foreign universities for their extended courses. Also the college pledges full scholarship to15 students of this locality and within the next 20 years, we will have produced around 300 engineers from this locality. Regarding the present status of our graduates, they are leading the top-most position in various government sectors as well as private organizations. Not only this, our graduates have been able to embrace the sterling post, such as secretary of the Nepal Government. Some of them are showing their jaw-dropping performance in overseas countries.
The college must have faced various ups and downs. Did it affect the academic activities of your college?
Truly speaking, the college has undergone several hurdles, ups and downs, for there were many unnecessary political activities that tried to obstruct our academic activities. But we are proud to say that we managed to control those activities. Therefore, we’ve been conducting our academic activities without any internal or external barriers since the establishment of the college.
What message would you like to convey to ten-plus-two science graduates concerning your college and its programs?
It is true that there is some misunderstanding and conflict in management level, but academic activities including practical class, fieldwork, research and exam schedule are being conducted without any disruption. Our faculty of teachers is so prodigious that they always show marvelous results of the examinations as it is one of the parameters to assess the quality of an educational institution. They are all at least master’s degree holders and a few of them have PhD qualifications. All of our academic programs are conducted under state-of-the-art infrastructure that incorporates ultra-modern practical laboratories and other academic facilities for the enrollees. I, therefore, suggest students they visit our college and ensure all quality education we deliver. I also suggest they should get feedback from our former students about academic activities of the college. We are fully committed to imparting quality education to produce competitive and globally employable engineers.
