Design of competency-based curriculum of engineering drawing for mechanical engineering technicians: an Indian experience

With science and technology advancing at a rapid pace, the type of manpower required by industry and society is becoming more and more specific. Industry requires, amongst other things, a workforce that has a technological bent of mind and competencies to maintain high quality standards and productivity. Quality and productivity depend mainly on the ability of technicians to communicate through drawing and using tools and instruments. Drawing is the language of engineering. Industry expects that their mechanical technicians are able to read engineering drawing correctly. Drawings prepared must be clear and should not have any scope for different interpretations. Recently with the advent of computer technology, excellent software packages have become available for engineering drawing. Engineering drawing is more performance- rather than knowledge-based. Curriculum for engineering drawing should be competency-based. This will drastically change the focus of the instructional strategies, laboratory experiences, assessment procedures and the necessity for industrial training. The design of competency-based curricula demands the identification of competencies, designing instructional strategies and appropriate assessment schemes for engineering drawing and drafting. The competency-based curriculum (presented in this paper) has been derived after a comprehensive study and is based an actual data.