This industry university could be ‘an average student’s IIT’

Centurion University of Technology & Management in Odisha offers hands-on skill training with industry partnerships for students.

A large steel structure workshop with electrical transformers in various stages of construction scattered on the left, a few minutes walk from the university entrance, resembles a factory. A group of youngsters in similar uniform work with coils and cores as their instructor explains the construction, while a few others are involved in testing the assembled units.

This facility, on the campus of the Centurion University of Technology & Management (CUTM), at Jatni town, about 25 km from Bhubaneswar in Odisha, officials call the action learning and research lab; the youngsters its students and the instructors the teaching faculty.

From this unit — a National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL)-accredited lab — leave 16, 25, 63, 100, 250 and 500 KVA electrical transformers, both repaired and manufactured. Among the biggest buyers was Tata Power which placed an order worth ₹3.5 crore for 352 transformers a couple of years ago. The Gram Tarang Employability Training Services (GTET), the university’s social enterprise, also secured another order for ₹17 crore.

Like the avenue plantation pots, all the way till the classroom buildings, are many such action labs — the International Centre for Automotive Technology (ICAT)-approved electric vehicles manufacturing unit, garment manufacturing complex run by school dropouts, wood engineering, precision machining lab for aerospace products, 3D printing, among a dozen others across the campus.

About 270 km from Jatni is the university’s largest campus at Paralakhemundi, which houses the M.S Swaminathan School of Agriculture, among others, where students monitor real-time cultivation of crops. It is here the students of Telangana Minorities Residential Educational Institutions Society (TMREIS) complete their vocational hands-on training in agriculture crop production, livestock and dairy technology, commercial garment technology, medical lab technician and multi-purpose health worker courses.

“Our pedagogy is 40% classroom and 60% practice; we look at production, solving core issues and pain points — in pursuit of technology as per the changing industry standards — and not courses or placements alone,” says D. Nageswara Rao, co-founder and vice-president of the university.

“The very basis of the university is institutionalising skills through integration with higher education and industry,” he adds, citing successful partnerships with Indian Space Research Organisation, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Dassault Systems, and others.