Mutual recognition of qualifications in engineering and technology education: a strategic proposal for Australia and India

The literature search shows that, across the world, there are several difficulties in the recognition of qualifications in higher education, including engineering and technology professions. The recent developments in the mutual recognition of professional courses have been evidenced within the USA and Europe; however, these are very small in number as compared to the strength of higher education worldwide. India’s vast and diverse higher education system, including engineering and technology, provides a daunting task for Australian universities to develop a bilateral credit transfer for winning relationships for various degree and diploma programs. The mutual recognition of qualifications in higher education of various accreditation and quality assurance agencies in Australia and India will add to their credibility among the education providers in both countries. A strategic proposal for a mutual recognition of qualification in engineering and technology education between the National Board of Accreditation (NBA), India and the Engineers Australia (IEAust), Australia, has briefly described in this paper. Several benefits of the proposed collaboration are listed in the paper. The programme evaluation strategy applied to this proposal has also briefly described with a short summary of cost and benefit analysis in this paper.