C.3.3. Exposure to practical fields and areas of application : In the industrially advanced countries of the world, there exists a long tradition of close partnership between academic institutions and industry in promoting technical education and research. In our country, despite a growing awareness of the importance of forging linkages between universities and industry, the interaction between them is still rather limited. Although both sides realize that this gap needs to be bridged, most of the initiative towards such, bridge building have come from educational institutions, hitherto with little success. The result is that education has remained stagnant while industries have advanced. The curriculum must aim to provide to the student greater exposure of actual ship board processes. Students projects should be related to actual problems identified with the help of practicing engineers. Greater stress should be laid on the practical training of engineering graduates and hands on training programmes should be encouraged wherever feasible.
