<p>Jobs are few, seekers more<br /><br /></p>.<p>India is the world’s second largest producer of engineering and technical graduates. Every year, over 50,000 technical graduates pass out of hundreds of educational institutions, spread across the country. <br />Unfortunately, many of these graduates are not immediately ‘employable’ (which is not the same as not getting jobs). Several independent studies have highlighted this problem. For instance, the oft-cited Nasscom-McKinsey study has revealed that more than 75% of these graduates are not ‘employment ready’, and only about 5% of them are actually ‘ready-to-deploy’.<br /><br />The difference<br />A ‘ready-to-deploy’ graduate is one who is equipped to be deployed on projects and can generate revenue for the company. To bring graduates to a state of ‘ready-to-deploy’ most IT organisations spend around 3-4 months training them at a cost of two lakhs per employee. In tough times like this, that is a cost most companies would like to reduce.<br />Over the last two decades or so, the number of educational institutions imparting technical education has grown by leaps and bounds. However, teachers are still paid a pittance and often there are no systems in place to reward or punish individuals based on their quality. Also, there is hardly any horizontal movement between industry and academia. Given these factors, the actual quality of technical resources coming out of Indian institutes need not surprise us.<br /><br />There are fundamental problems at the design level as well. The curricula followed at our universities and colleges are often outdated with hardly any focus on the requirements of the industry. While engineering education is supposed to develop key skills such as problem solving and process manipulation, bulk of learning in our institutions is centred around passing the exams that rely on rote-memorising the content.<br /><br />Excess ‘supply’<br />Most people expect the Indian economy to start its recovery by the end of 2009. A study by PurpleLeap, (a company which deals with entry-level skill management) projects a demand of about 70,000 freshers from the IT industry in 2010. Given the excess supply of graduates in 2009, the competition for jobs will be fierce next year.<br /><br />To avoid being overlooked by potential employers, students need to focus on developing transferable skills – skills that are applicable across industries, such as thinking, behavioural and interaction skills.<br /><br />Data shows that nearly 70% of our technical graduates do not have the minimum requirement of thinking skills to be employable. On the positive side, an improvement in information processing skills and problem solving will double the number of employable graduates. It also means that while communication skill is necessary, it is not sufficient to become employable.<br /><br />Today, there is professional help available from IT finishing schools and the like, to help students acquire these skills in a scientific manner under professional guidance. Engineering colleges are going all out to make sure that they don’t lose out on the shrinking ‘campus placement’ numbers. Students need to be aware and look out for every ‘skill enhancement opportunity’ that is available inside or outside campuses and make optimum use of the same.<br /><br />Focused efforts<br />It is also a good idea to try and be prepared for specific roles in the industry. It would be a good idea to target a particular role and attain technical and functional expertise for that role itself.<br /><br />Students can overcome the effects of today’s gloomy business environment with an appropriate career plan that involves some level-headed thinking about realistic choices in the short-term, coupled with appropriate investment of resources in acquiring employment skills.<br /><em><br />Amit Bansal,CEO, PurpleLeap</em><br /><br />‘Application skills are poor’<br />It is reported that every year close to half a million young Indians graduate as engineers from thousands of technical colleges functioning in the country. An equal number of persons must be graduating in other disciplines (combined) such as commerce, arts, humanities, medicine, pure sciences, etc.<br /><br />While they seem to be strong in theoretical content, it is reported that the graduates’ application skills are woefully lacking. NASSCOM has categorically stated that only twenty percent of fresh engineering graduates are directly employable. Even the leading manufacturing industrial groups have opined the same. Similar has been the case with finance professionals and other science graduates and post graduates. Professor C N R Rao has also remarked that our technical research base is quite weak with very few people opting for it.<br /><br />So what ails the system? Recently a bunch of bright engineering graduates from India applied for financial assistance / assistantship for masters programme in one of the reputed universities known for academic excellence in USA. The grant committee had limited financial resources and was therefore selective in awarding the assistantships. <br />The committee decided to test the engineering skills of these Indians (their stream was mechanical engineering – applied mechanics area). They were supplied with a drawing board and required material and asked to come up with the prototype. These Indians who had passed out with distinction from accredited colleges in India, to their horror, realised that even after working for more than a week they could not come up with a single, perfect prototype model despite working collectively!<br /><br />The committee concluded that notwithstanding excellent grades, these Indians were incapable of completing the task. The committee awarded the assistantships to aspirants from Taiwan, China and USA who not only made perfect models but also made them independently.<br /><br />Skill-based training<br /><br />Engineering polytechnics were started almost at the same time in India and China. China made the best use of this technical infrastructure and has emerged as the Global Manufacturing Hub, whereas the same has been a abysmal failure in India.<br />Unless we learn to apply theoretical knowledge and achieve expected outcomes, excellence in technical education will remain a distant dream.<br /><br /><em><br /> Chandrashekar Subramanya </em><br /><br /><br />Is there a problem with the current educational system that really gets to you? Tell us about it in not more than 800 words, along with your name and address. Send in your article, or feedback over the current ‘Opinion’, to dheducation@deccanherald.co.in. Or write to DH Education, <br />Deccan Herald, #75, MG Road, Bangalore - 560001.</p>
<p>Jobs are few, seekers more<br /><br /></p>.<p>India is the world’s second largest producer of engineering and technical graduates. Every year, over 50,000 technical graduates pass out of hundreds of educational institutions, spread across the country. <br />Unfortunately, many of these graduates are not immediately ‘employable’ (which is not the same as not getting jobs). Several independent studies have highlighted this problem. For instance, the oft-cited Nasscom-McKinsey study has revealed that more than 75% of these graduates are not ‘employment ready’, and only about 5% of them are actually ‘ready-to-deploy’.<br /><br />The difference<br />A ‘ready-to-deploy’ graduate is one who is equipped to be deployed on projects and can generate revenue for the company. To bring graduates to a state of ‘ready-to-deploy’ most IT organisations spend around 3-4 months training them at a cost of two lakhs per employee. In tough times like this, that is a cost most companies would like to reduce.<br />Over the last two decades or so, the number of educational institutions imparting technical education has grown by leaps and bounds. However, teachers are still paid a pittance and often there are no systems in place to reward or punish individuals based on their quality. Also, there is hardly any horizontal movement between industry and academia. Given these factors, the actual quality of technical resources coming out of Indian institutes need not surprise us.<br /><br />There are fundamental problems at the design level as well. The curricula followed at our universities and colleges are often outdated with hardly any focus on the requirements of the industry. While engineering education is supposed to develop key skills such as problem solving and process manipulation, bulk of learning in our institutions is centred around passing the exams that rely on rote-memorising the content.<br /><br />Excess ‘supply’<br />Most people expect the Indian economy to start its recovery by the end of 2009. A study by PurpleLeap, (a company which deals with entry-level skill management) projects a demand of about 70,000 freshers from the IT industry in 2010. Given the excess supply of graduates in 2009, the competition for jobs will be fierce next year.<br /><br />To avoid being overlooked by potential employers, students need to focus on developing transferable skills – skills that are applicable across industries, such as thinking, behavioural and interaction skills.<br /><br />Data shows that nearly 70% of our technical graduates do not have the minimum requirement of thinking skills to be employable. On the positive side, an improvement in information processing skills and problem solving will double the number of employable graduates. It also means that while communication skill is necessary, it is not sufficient to become employable.<br /><br />Today, there is professional help available from IT finishing schools and the like, to help students acquire these skills in a scientific manner under professional guidance. Engineering colleges are going all out to make sure that they don’t lose out on the shrinking ‘campus placement’ numbers. Students need to be aware and look out for every ‘skill enhancement opportunity’ that is available inside or outside campuses and make optimum use of the same.<br /><br />Focused efforts<br />It is also a good idea to try and be prepared for specific roles in the industry. It would be a good idea to target a particular role and attain technical and functional expertise for that role itself.<br /><br />Students can overcome the effects of today’s gloomy business environment with an appropriate career plan that involves some level-headed thinking about realistic choices in the short-term, coupled with appropriate investment of resources in acquiring employment skills.<br /><em><br />Amit Bansal,CEO, PurpleLeap</em><br /><br />‘Application skills are poor’<br />It is reported that every year close to half a million young Indians graduate as engineers from thousands of technical colleges functioning in the country. An equal number of persons must be graduating in other disciplines (combined) such as commerce, arts, humanities, medicine, pure sciences, etc.<br /><br />While they seem to be strong in theoretical content, it is reported that the graduates’ application skills are woefully lacking. NASSCOM has categorically stated that only twenty percent of fresh engineering graduates are directly employable. Even the leading manufacturing industrial groups have opined the same. Similar has been the case with finance professionals and other science graduates and post graduates. Professor C N R Rao has also remarked that our technical research base is quite weak with very few people opting for it.<br /><br />So what ails the system? Recently a bunch of bright engineering graduates from India applied for financial assistance / assistantship for masters programme in one of the reputed universities known for academic excellence in USA. The grant committee had limited financial resources and was therefore selective in awarding the assistantships. <br />The committee decided to test the engineering skills of these Indians (their stream was mechanical engineering – applied mechanics area). They were supplied with a drawing board and required material and asked to come up with the prototype. These Indians who had passed out with distinction from accredited colleges in India, to their horror, realised that even after working for more than a week they could not come up with a single, perfect prototype model despite working collectively!<br /><br />The committee concluded that notwithstanding excellent grades, these Indians were incapable of completing the task. The committee awarded the assistantships to aspirants from Taiwan, China and USA who not only made perfect models but also made them independently.<br /><br />Skill-based training<br /><br />Engineering polytechnics were started almost at the same time in India and China. China made the best use of this technical infrastructure and has emerged as the Global Manufacturing Hub, whereas the same has been a abysmal failure in India.<br />Unless we learn to apply theoretical knowledge and achieve expected outcomes, excellence in technical education will remain a distant dream.<br /><br /><em><br /> Chandrashekar Subramanya </em><br /><br /><br />Is there a problem with the current educational system that really gets to you? Tell us about it in not more than 800 words, along with your name and address. Send in your article, or feedback over the current ‘Opinion’, to dheducation@deccanherald.co.in. Or write to DH Education, <br />Deccan Herald, #75, MG Road, Bangalore - 560001.</p>
