Nevertheless, the future is wholly dependent on the trends in technology, demographics, urbanization, construction delivery, globalization and economic shift, thus considering large energy implications and adverse impact on the use of resources, buildings have to be planned, designed and constructed with utmost care and sensitivity. Accordingly, role of architects and profession of architecture holds a greater responsibility and is getting firmly rooted, thus with the liberalisation of technical education in India, a large mass of students is opting for architecture as a career and number of institutions imparting architectural education is increasing manifold.
Around 450 architecture schools are functioning today. With an assumed average intake of around 35, we have around 16,000 students ready for graduation every year. Fifty years ago, there were only 16 schools producing less than 500 architectural graduates per year. Where as in the last fifty years our national population multiplied just 2.5 times, the number of architecture schools increased 28 times and the number of students graduating in architecture increased 35 times! What does this explosion of architecture schools and architects mean? Has it affected the quality of education and the quality of architects? Has it far exceeded the capacity of the market, the demand of the society? Has it resulted in a situation where increasing percentage of architectural graduates seek job avenues outside professional architecture? The answer to all these questions is YES. This is just one aspect of architectural education, where the things have turned upside down. the quality of education and the quality of institutions does not meet the expectations and demands of the profession. Many private institutions and universities with a vast range of courses, technical and non- technical provide architectural education without realising the fact that architecture as a profession and architectural pedagogy has different needs and requirements.
With majority of architectural institutions being part of the universities limited options and opportunities are available for the independent track of architectural education. There becomes a widening gap between the authorities and the individuals while meeting certain norms and regulations as the work hours, working requirements, exam duration, course duration and curriculum requirements does not fit in. Stringent norms and regulations, unsupportive attitude, lack of objectivity, irrelevant mechanism of inspection, irrational structure of regulatory authorities make it difficult for the architectural education system to get functioned properly in an institution. Thus, it is required that architectural institution should remain a separate entity with a different set of norms and regulations.
