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RISING EMPLOYMENT GAP DUE TO UNEMPLOYABLE ENGINEERS

  • Swetha Y
  • Jun 13, 2019
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RISING EMPLOYMENT GAP DUE TO UNEMPLOYABLE ENGINEERS

 

The 20th Century American educator, John Dewey has rightly said, “The real process of education should be the process to think through the applications of real problems.” Though this statement was devised in the early 20th century, it holds relevant way ahead of all the times, creating a solid foundation for modern education to prosper.

The above statement is wallowing to hold its stance in a country like India, where engineering back educational scenario is supplying bright minds to leading organizations. The demand for engineering education is high. In today's day and age, approximately 10.5 lakh engineering students appear for the IIT JEE entrance exams every year.

A recent report by Aspiring Minds stated that as many as 95% of the 36,000 engineers assessed in IT related branches were considered unemployable for software development jobs. The report further states that 36,000 engineering students from IT-related fields from over 500 colleges took the Automata, a Machine Learning based assessments where over 60% could not write code that complies. The report also adds that a mere 3.84% of Indian engineers have the technical, cognitive and language skills that are needed for software related jobs in startups.

Adding to the above study, it was reported that only 3% of engineers have new-age technology skills in emerging areas such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning etc. according to the report.

For a country like India where there are lakhs of engineers produced every year, it becomes vital that our graduates have new-age skills such as AI, ML, data, mobile and cloud in order to continue with the global competition and keep up its growth rate.

In the past three decades, there has been an escalating number of graduated fleeing abroad to complete their bachelor or master degrees. The reason being that, the US alone triumphs with almost four times higher percentage of engineers who are able to code. In the US it is estimated that around 18.8% of engineers who are applying for jobs in the IT sector can write correct codes, on contrary to only 4.7% who can do it in India.

Adding to the above shortcomings, All India Council for Technical Education has shut down over 150 engineering colleges due to the lack of basic technical knowledge amongst the students. The lack of integrity in these colleges to impart quality education, interest to enhance the standards is lost amongst even eminent educational institutions in the country. Whilst the IT fad was a 90’s things, graduates these days need to acquaint themselves with the new and upcoming developed sectors of engineering. The functioning relied heavily on the bulk placements by the upcoming IT firms, creating a shortage of quality education.

A dull curriculum is to be blamed as well. Whilst the technology in the workplace is increasing, the curriculum still remains worn-out. Even today, Indian technical institutions lay emphasis on theoretical knowledge and as a result, practical knowledge takes a backseat. Today’s essential subjects like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning are dodged making it much difficult to gain the right and efficient skills.

Lastly, engineering is vastly beyond Computer Science and Information Technology, a fact that has still not resonated in the employment scenario. This has caused a significant gap between skills and market requirements. To reach the 100% guaranteed placement, institutions often herd up their students from all domains to appear for software industry opportunities. This has caused a deficit in other branches with some domains leading to shut-down altogether. With diverse skillsets, this gap in unemployment can be bridged as well as your skillsets will be on par with the current industry requirements. 

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