Want the best engineers? Go to Delhi, says study

Rank & order

The National Employability Study 2011 reveals that Delhi has the best engineers among metros, followed by Kolkata and Bangalore, respectively. Shruthi Balakrishna analyses the situation

As surprising as it may seem, the IT capital of the country is yet to reach the top slot in providing the best of engineers. Considering there are thousands of IT-based companies and nearly 200 engineering colleges in Karnataka, it comes as bit of a shock that a study has revealed that Delhi has the best engineers followed by Kolkata, among metros. 

According to the National Employability Study 2011 by Aspiring Minds, an employability solutions company, Delhi showed the highest employability per cent for IT Product, IT Services, KPO, BPO, Software Testing and Hardware Networking roles across metro cities. 

For instance, in IT services alone, Delhi has a high employability per cent of 39.78; While Kolkata has 25.30% and Bangalore has 16.79%. The lowest employability figures were observed in colleges in southern cities. 

Further, the study showed that the IT product employability in Delhi is as high as 1 in every 9 candidates and as low as 1 in every 200 in Chennai. Even though Bangalore has similar IT Services’ employability as compared to other Southern and Western cities, it shows much higher employability for IT product companies. “This shows that students in Bangalore do much better at computer programming and algorithms even though they show similar English and cognitive skills. This could be because of better exposure to computer programming either at home, schools or colleges,’’ it stated.

Himanshu Aggarwal, CEO and Director, Aspiring Minds said that the IT product employability depends on a higher level of knowledge in technical areas apart from the language and aptitude requirements in the IT Services industry. “Delhi has a select set of colleges with a sizable concentration of government-run institutions. Regions with a lower number of colleges and with a higher number of government institutions have generally been found to fare better in employability for the IT industry. While this could be one of the reasons, there could be other reasons including socio-economic trends, entry criteria, teaching standards, curriculum, etc. which could be playing a part,’’ he said. 

Region-wise, employability in IT services companies is highest in the North, followed by the East, then the West and finally the South. Delhi and Bihar-Jharkhand emerge as states with the largest employability figures.

Himanshu added: “Delhi has a concentration of some well reputed institutes and has emerged as a hub of high quality talent. While in some states over 3 in every 10 engineers are employable in the IT Services industry, this falls drastically to less than 1 in every 10 of the engineers in some states. This dramatic fall in employability standards across states is a disturbing situation. Not only is this detrimental to the educational standards and economy of the country, but it also creates social risks of frustration among ‘qualified’ engineers. The strong correlation of poor employability to the number of colleges in a state show how states are concentrating on quantity rather than quality.”

The study stated that the employability per cent decreases with the increase in the number of engineering colleges in a particular state, clearly establishing that opening more engineering colleges need not solve the problem of quality of engineers in the country. The states need to concentrate on improving the educational standards of the current engineering colleges. 

Second, even though the number of colleges is a major factor in guiding employability in a particular state, it does not explain it completely. For instance, even though Tamil Nadu has a lower number of engineering colleges as compared to Andhra Pradesh, it has a lower employability percentage (8.33 as compared to 12.73). “Similarly, Delhi has more colleges than Bihar, but a higher employability rate. Employability for a state is a complex interplay due to several socio-economic and developmental factors. What is required is a greater thrust on improving the quality of engineering education,” it concluded.

The National Employability Study by Aspiring Minds is based on the Aspiring Minds Computer Adaptive Test (AMCAT) scores of more than 1.2 lakh technical graduates, engineering and MCA students (in the final year) across the country. 

AMCAT was conducted in more than 20 states. It covers all objective parameters for adjudging employability in the IT/ITes sector including English communication, quantitative skills, problem-solving and computer science and programming skills. Employability figures are based on actual hiring benchmarks on AMCAT scores set by multiple companies in the IT/ITeS related sectors.