Er. Lekh Bahadur Gurung
Founder, Principal
Pokhara Engineering College
Founded in 1999 AD, Pokhara Engineering College is the first college of Pokhara University outside the Kathmandu valley. The college was established to replenish the need and demand of technical education in Nepal. Since the beginning of its establishment, Pokhara Engineering College has been attempting many possible steps to get into the technical solutions to even common problems. Continuous efforts from every touching employee and student contribute to Pokhara Engineering College that result in receiving the perfect recognition in national and international universities, companies, and research organizations. Currently, it offers an array of courses: BE Computer, BE Civil, BE Electronics and Communication, B. Architecture, affiliated to Pokhara University and Diploma courses: Civil Engineering, Electronics Engineering and Computer Engineering, affiliated to CTEVT. Er. Lekh Bahadur Gurung is the Founder Principal at Pokhara Engineering College. He shares on growing significance of communication and technology. Excerpts:
How is the current status quo of your graduates?
More than 1100 students have already achieved their graduation from Pokhara Engineering College. Some of the graduates are currently working at NASA and few at NCELL as Deputy Managers. The graduates are mostly engaged in the electronic sectors in the various swathes of the country. No graduates have remained unemployed. But major factor is that the high confidence level is required to be successful in career pursuits. If you have technical education, many avenues open up in your life; you can do jobs, you can run your own enterprise; you can work as a consultant; you can be an independent freelancer and job creator/provider as well.
What are the distinct features of Pokhara Engineering College which are scarce in other institutions?
I don’t think it’s appropriate if I compare our college with others’ since every organization has its own policies, strategies, features and traits. We provide continuous education to our students, which is the main feature of our college. We provide both theoretical and practical education to our learners. Moreover, we provide supplementary projects for the electronics and computer engineering students. We offer our students the skills of handling Android, application development, web page designing and many more in addition to our regular courses. We are also intending to organize an exhibition to showcase all the projects accomplished by our students.
I feel delighted to share the happy moment of the accomplishment of our students that they have received awards and certificates for showing their projects in exhibitions conducted by several organizations. Moreover, some of our students visited Germany, Norway and other European countries to develop their products and projects. Santosh KC, one of our college graduates, is a renowned software developer. So, these are our features that have taken our appellation to greater heights.
Based on your four-decade long experience, what should the engineering courses be like?
Now, the engineering education is mushrooming everywhere. They are sprouted like boarding schools in the past. So, in order to retain its significance we must consider imparting exceptional quality. This could be true the department of engineering education should be handled by the engineers only, so that they can utilize their learned knowledge of engineering properly. Even the founders of engineering colleges should be engineers so they can administer their offices efficiently deciphering the secrets of success in the engineering courses. About 80 to 90% of engineering colleges have been established by the people who hardly know about engineering. Moreover, the university, engineering council, and educational ministry should actively embark on sustainable and effective implementation of the engineering courses in Nepal.
What suggestions would you like to give to +2 graduates to study engineering?
First and foremost, you should know what engineering education is. If you want to be an engineer, you must have these requisites: dreaming about future, creating target, envisaging innovations, stepping on professionalism, getting the bright days, and more importantly, solidifying your cuddled dreams. If you can make them an integral part of your education pursuits, you can eventually achieve your goal.
