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As a faculty member, I believe that we help shaping the characteristics that our
students embody upon graduation from our engineering courses. The full extent
of our role, i.e., the ways we influence students, is not well
understood, particularly at the institution level. According to NASSCOM, each year over
three million graduates and postgraduates are added to the Indian workforce. However,
of these only 25% of technical graduates and 10-15% of other graduates are
considered employable by the rapidly growing IT and ITES segments. Given the current
high-paced growth and dynamic investment climate in India, the demand for knowledge
workers with high level of technical and soft skills will only increase. With the expansion
taking place across sectors: Banking and Financial Services (BFSI), retail,
manufacturing, pharma, SMEs, outsourcing/off-shoring companies, service providers, etc., there
already exists a large need for IT talent. It is also estimated that India would require a
workforce of 2.3 million employees in the IT and IT-enabled services sectors by 2010.
However, over the past 15 years, India has produced 1.6 million professionals and faces the
uphill task of producing another 0.8 million in the next two years. In this
demand-supply gap scenario, a look at the Indian education system will reveal that the number
of technical schools in India, including engineering colleges, has actually more than
trebled in the last decade, according to the All India Council of Technical Education. Part
of the skills gap problem is that only a small percentage of India's young go for
higher education. No more than 7% of Indians aged 18-25 go to college, according to
official statistics.
Even a more fundamental level of education is proving difficult with
nearly 40% of people over the age of 15 being illiterate. Ironically, it is becoming even
harder to create a robust and continuous pipeline of talent. The university systems of
few countries would be able to keep up with such demand, and India is certainly
having trouble. The best and most selective universities generate too few graduates, and
new private colleges are producing graduates of uneven quality. Further, universities
and educational institutions have been unable to update their syllabi in tune with the
high speed changes taking place in the world of technology. Hence, the students
churned out are not equipped to meet the current industry requirements and often
companies have to incur additional expenses (time and monetary) to train new hires. Besides
the technological aspect, industries also evaluate competencies ranging from soft skills,
team building and overall attitude to fundamental values. In response to these
challenges, engineering colleges need to scan their system of education and identify problem
areas and adopt appropriate interventions to bridge the gap between what is desired by
the industry and what is being delivered.
Studying in premier engineering colleges is a matter of IQ and not every student is
gifted. Thanks to Government of Andhra Pradesh for reimbursing tuition fees as the
so-called "elite engineering education" has become an undeserving option for many and
deserving choice for only few. If a qualitative survey among engineering students is
conducted, it can be concluded that most of the students' personality determinants such as
attitude, interests, values and aptitudes do not match with the engineering education
outcomes. The self-esteem a student need to possess should be significantly high after
training is provided to him. However, the same is not the case with engineering students.
An average engineering college student who is exposed to rigorous exams,
presentation sessions, group discussions and personality development programs still
undervalues his worth. |
