MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE & ENGINEERING EDUCATION IN INDIA – AN EMPIRICAL STUDY (Pages 20-46) by Mr. V. Rajesh* and Ms. J. Jaya Parveen** in THE ENGLISH INDIA / ISSN: 2321-1172 (Online); 2347-2634 (Print)

In India, engineering is seen as a religion. Every intelligent child is supposed to become an engineer. (Aarish, 2012) The demand for engineers is high in foreign countries and multi-national companies in India. The salary for engineers is higher than that of any other professional. There are many engineering colleges in India. Public and private banks provide educational loans to the students. So the parents compel their wards to join engineering even though they are least interested or incapable of studying engineering in the college. Multiple eeing it as a single general ability. (Gardner, 1983) It includes logical/mathematical, spatial, verbal/linguistic, bodily/kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic intelligences. Students with kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, and spatial intelligences can excel in engineering while students with linguistic, musical, naturalistic intelligences may do well in literature, music, biology, etc. When the students' intelligences don't match their subjects of higher study, they struggle hard and get frustrated. This study discusses the social and political reasons for the rapid growth of engineering education in India and its actual effects on Indian students. It tries to find whether all the engineering students have kinesthetic, mathematical/logical, and spatial intelligence required for engineering education, whether they are able to apply their intelligences in their studies, and whether the students with verbal, musical, naturalistic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligences enjoy learning in engineering colleges, etc.