Students of Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology painting a mural with commuters at Cubbon Park Metro Station, Bengaluru. , Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
It is no coincidence that this year, three leading Indian private universities, all relatively new – Shiv Nadar University (SNU), Jindal Global University (JGU) and FLAME University – have launched graduate programs in design. In the past few years, other private universities have forayed into design. In 2020, the Manipal Academy of Higher Education acquired the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Bengaluru. Anant National University (ANU) and JK Lakshmipat University (JKLU) have also started undergraduate degree in design.
India is facing a severe shortage of designers. It is estimated that only one design graduate is produced per thousand engineers in the country. However, while design is becoming more popular, institutions providing design education are still relatively few in number.
late start
Formal modern design education in India has historically lagged behind. Until the 2000s, there were only a few institutions offering undergraduate or graduate degrees in design. While the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad was established in 1961 and the Industrial Design Center at IIT Bombay was established in 1969, these two were the only institutes to provide design education for several decades. Srishti, established in 1996, came much later, and was the only private design school of note.
With some help from the Government of India, the neglect of design slowly began to change. In 2007, it adopted the National Design Policy and established the India Design Council in 2009. While interior design already had a large market in urban India – and has grown with India’s growing economy – fashion design has also started to become popular.
Over the past decade or so, there has been a slow increase in the number of institutions, especially private institutions, offering programs in design, some with international collaborations.
Weak demand for design
in his 2020 book Struggle and Promise: Restoring India’s PotentialNaushad Forbes, former president of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and regular commentator on economic issues, innovation and education, devoted an entire chapter to design. He expressed concern that perhaps no more than a hundred Indian companies were passionate about design, whereas, given India’s size, at least a thousand companies were needed to be “design champions”. In the book, Dr. Forbes, who is a leading expert on creativity and product design at Stanford University, the late James L. Adams, wrote that “we should have many more companies in the country that look to design as their core.” strategy”.
The ‘weak demand for design’ scenario may be changing. The design sector in India is said to be growing at the rate of 23-25% annually. In a 2022 report, Olina Banerjee said there is “accelerating demand” for the design. According to the British Council’s 2016 report ‘The Future of Design Education in India’, “there is expected to be a huge market demand for professionally-trained design companies as well as professionally-trained designers”.
supply side challenges
Things are starting to improve on the supply side too – although there is still a significant shortage of qualified designers. According to the report of the All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE), in 2011-2012, 3,385 students enrolled for bachelor’s degree in design and 942 degrees were awarded. In 2020-2021, the number has gone up to 40,586 with 5,944 receiving the degree. These numbers do not include students enrolled in specialized courses such as textile design and leather design, and should therefore be considered roughly indicative rather than entirely accurate.
Private universities are leading the way in providing design education while public institutions are lagging behind. Among the major public institutes, IIT Delhi is the only one which has recently started an undergraduate program in design. However, the number of students awarded bachelor’s degrees in design at this and three other IITs – Bombay, Guwahati and Hyderabad – has been only 139.
India’s premier design school, NID-Ahmedabad, admits less than 300 students to its undergraduate program. Six other NIDs have been set up across the country but their student intake is very low. According to Dr. Banerjee, “There are not enough people coming out of top-tier design institutes to provide a total of about 100 viable graduates a year.”
It is difficult to reliably estimate the shortage of designers. A significant problem is that, like other disciplines, most design programs do not produce employable graduates. As CII’s ‘India Design Report’ states, “There is a general feeling from within [the] design graduates are not well trained in the design industry” and “they do not have the competencies required by the industry”.
Another problem is the underutilization of available designers and the variation in demand and supply in different areas of design. According to Professor MP Ranjan, NID-Ahmedabad, a lot of trained design talent is underutilized and there is a need for more trained designers in many sectors.
There is no doubt that design education is a growth area. Design education could see a boost in 2020, based on the increasing number of design programs offered in universities in India. However, there will be a shortage of designers due to poor quality training.
Pushkar (@PushHigherEd) is the director of The International Center Goa, Dona Paula. The views expressed here are personal.