bstract; Architecture, as a profession, has its genesis in all arts and all sciences. Operational domain of profession of architecture revolves around creating buildings which are supposed to be synthesis of aesthetic, technology and humanities. Buildings are designed to provide optimum level of operational efficiency besides ensuring quality indoor environment for end users. Buildings are also known to be large consumers of energy and resources besides generators of waste. When not planned and designed rationally, buildings not only make end users unhealthy and sick but also create imbalance in environment and ecology. Considering large energy implications, carbon footprints, adverse impact on use of resources and promoting sustainability, buildings have to be planned , designed and constructed with great care, caution and sensitivity. Accordingly, role of Architects and profession of architecture assumes importance to create sustainable built environment. Considering massive growth of population and requirements of creating large number of state of art buildings, to take care of the basic human needs, profession of architecture is getting firmly rooted and commanding a relatively better acceptance in the post- independence period. With liberalisation of technical education in India and large number of students opting for architecture as a career, number of institutions imparting architectural education have increased manifold. With rapid growth of institutions, architectural education is facing large number of challenges and issues in terms of quality of education imparted; availability of quality faculty; mushrooming of architectural institutions ; widening gap between education and profession; challenges posed by globalisation and liberalisation ; changing architectural vocabulary; norms and standards of architectural education and new building materials & construction technologies besides role of the regulatory authorities. Based on the issues identified, paper attempts to define strategies and identify best global practices which would help in making architectural education more focussed, more qualitative, more supportive, more productive and relevant to the context. It would help and promote profession, by providing quality professionals to create new order of built environment , which is cost-effective, time efficient and makes users more productive and healthy besides creating buildings which are least consumers of energy and promoters of global and local sustainability

INTRODUCTION Architecture, as an activity, has been in practice since man started creating shelter for himself for seeking protection from vagaries of the weather and safety from wild animals. The nature of shelter went on changing with the advent of technology, development of new materials, changing economic and social environment, growing trade & commerce and prevailing physical and political structure. Religion and culture made its contribution to enlarge the vocabulary of buildings. However, despite the fact architecture, which was practised for number of centuries in India , got recognition as a profession only recently.
Architecture is known to be synthesis of all arts and sciences with operational domain revolving around creating state of art built environment to serve the basic human needs of living, working and care of mind and spirits besides circulation. Architecture remains, primarily and essentially, a design activity supported and guided by climate, location, site, context, environment, ecology, materials, technology etc. It is a unique blend of aesthetic, technology and humanities duly supported by technical input but unlike pure civil engineering. Since it is an activity where end product is meant to meet the basic needs of providing appropriate shelter, accordingly its role and importance in creating appropriate, supportive and sustainable built environment assumes importance.
Opening of Sir JJ College of Art and Architecture in Mumbai in the earlier part of 20th century, marked the beginning of formal system of Architectural education in India. With architecture, as a profession, getting firmly rooted and commanding a relatively better acceptance in the post- independence and post- liberalisation period of technical education in India, large number of students are now opting for study of architecture. This has led to the surge /mushrooming in the number of institutions imparting architectural education in the country. With opening of the large number of institutions and growth in number of students during last decade, quality of architectural education, its relevance and context to emerging national realities has emerged as an issue of intense debate and scrutiny. Credibility of all professions has high degree of co-relation to the quality and dedication of professionals serving them. Accordingly, for promoting profession and achieving objectives ordained for the profession, it becomes critical that quality of education imparted must be of the highest order, relevant to the needs, ethos, objectives , environment and ecology, so that professionals could meet the aspirations of society and all stakeholders. However, under the growing impact of liberalisation, globalisation and multi-national culture, profession of architecture is facing numerous challenges and threats due to fast changing construction technologies, new found materials and rapidly changing architectural vocabulary and building footprints

Major Challenges facing Architectural Education in India: Looking at the existing scenario, key challenges facing architectural education can be enumerated as under: • Challenge of language: Considering the fact that medium of imparting architectural education remains English only, for large number of students coming from the remote and rural areas where medium of education remains other than English, understanding basics and nitty, gritty of profession education becomes a nightmare • Challenge of faculty shortage: With rapid expansion of architectural institutions, stringent norms and large student’s intake, there remains perpetual shortage of appropriate faculty. • Challenge of low exposure to ground reality: Majority of education being class room based, students have minimal exposure to the ground realities and challenges facing the profession, creating numerous problems when they graduate and search for position in the market. • Challenge posed by minimal Industry- academics Interaction: With majority of teachers, being fresh graduates, without any professional experience, there always remains a disconnect between profession and academics, leading to mismatch between focus of education and the requirement of the profession. • Challenge in employability: With poor quality of education, majority of students graduating from architectural institutions face challenge of gainful and respectful employability. • Challenge posed by numbers: Large sanctioned intake of students coupled with acute shortage of faculty and limited availability of positions for practical training, makes it impossible to carry out qualitative improvement in education. • Challenge pose by engineering dominance: With majority of architectural institutions forming part of engineering institutions, limited opportunities and options are available for chartering independent path of architectural education • Challenges posed by duration of the course: With under-graduate course in architecture being of five years duration, as against four years for engineering, in majority of cases only left-over’s from engineering courses join the architectural course in majority of cases. • Challenges posed by regulatory authorities: Stringent and oudated norms and regulations, unsupportive attitude, lack of objectivity, politicising education/profession, irrational mechanism of inspection, focus on infrastructure rather than quality of education, irrational decision making, existence of large number of malpractices, irrational structure of regulatory authorities, conflict with governmental agencies have led to deterioration of architectural education • Challenges posed by teaching methodology ; With focus on teacher and not on student ,the present system of education/ teaching remains input based and not on output based ; on product and not on process; on teaching and not on learning resulting in exclusion of students from learning process

Finding of the studies were:
• Better quality buildings and public spaces improve the quality of people live and quality of the built environment made a difference to the way they felt. • Well designed buildings and spaces has positive influences on the quality of daily life, professional productivity, educational attainment, physical well-being • Well designed hospital help patients get better more quickly • Well designed school improve the educational achievement of its pupils • Well designed department store have a direct impact on stock • Well designed neighbourhood benefit from lower crime and higher house values Report also stated that we cannot afford not to invest in good design. Good design is not just about the aesthetic improvement of our environment, it is as much about improved quality of life, equality of opportunity and economic growth. For a successful and sustainable society, we have to overcome our ignorance about the importance of design and depart from our culturally-ingrained notion that a poor quality environment is the norm. The stakes are high but to succeed we need to abide by three key principles: • Good design does not cost more when measured across the lifetime of the building or place • Good design flows from the employment of skilled and multidisciplinary team • The starting point of good design is client commitment

USHROOM GROWTH OF ARCHITECTURAL INSTITUTIONS
Starting with two institutions in 1950, the number of architectural institutions now stands at 515 ( August,2017) in the country. Growth of these institutions has been largely during the last decade with states of Maharashtra, Tamilnadu, UP, Karnataka and Kerala cornering the major share. These four states jointly hold 59 % share of total institutions in the country. Mushroom growth of these institutions in a short time span has led to high degree of dilution of architectural education in the country. With number of students registered in the B. Arch course standing at 58847 on 02.12.2015 since 2008 ( as per the list displayed on the website of Council of Architecture), it can be assumed profession of architecture is going to meet the same fate that of engineering, in terms of quality

STATUS OF FACULTY
With rapid growth of number of architectural institutions and higher order of prescribed teacher- student’s ratio of 1:8, as against 1:15 in case of engineering, number of faculty members required in the architectural institutions has multiplied manifolds. In order to understand the availability of trained manpower for the faculty positions, it will be appropriate to look at the number of Architects available in the Country. As per the Council Of Architecture (only statutory authority created under the Indian Architects Act, 1972 to register the Architects) , here are in all 56644 registered Architects in the country as on August 27, 2017. Considering the population of 1210 million (as per census 2011), India has a very low availability of Architects in the country which works out to be 4.7 architects for every one lakh of population. Analysis of the data, regarding the spatial distribution of registered architects with Council of Architecture, also show lopsided distribution of the Architects in the country with majority of Architects choosing large urban areas as their place of residence and operation. Analysis of data reveals that 22 metropolitan cities in the country hold 67.37 % (38160) registered Architects. Mumbai alone has 10.92% of Architects of the country (6186) whereas share of national capital Delhi stands at 11.66% (6609). Large number of architectural institutions are located in rural/ remote areas, with little connectivity with major urban centres where majority of Architects are located. These institutions are facing acute shortage of faculty members, both in quantity and quality, because few Architects are available in their nearby areas. Further, majority of Architects being in private practice/ service, they have little time and interest in teaching in architectural institutions. Considering the existing scenario, majority of faculty positions in the architectural institutions manned are at the lowest level of lecturer/assistant professors , and that too by the fresh graduates coming out of the colleges, without any professional and teaching experience and without understanding the professional practices. More than half of Architects (56.64 %) registered with COA are young and below the age of 35 years , out of which 10.96% are even below 25 years of age, clearly indicating the acute shortage of professional manpower available in the country in the domain of architecture. Considering the fact that prescribed ratio for faculty in architectural institutions is 1:2:4 for the Professors, Associate Professors and Assistant Professors, large number of positions at the level of Professors and Associate Professors are either vacant or are being manned.