March 4, 2019

Of late, headlines in newspapers shout out that our engineering graduates do not have adequate skills to be employed. Experts say that unemployment due to this may cause serious instability in the economic and social conditions in the country, along with wide scale dissatisfaction and disillusionment.

Engineering graduates’ employability depends on their ability to apply the concepts learnt to develop continuously innovative things and find solutions to complex problems. In a difficult economic scenario, companies do not want to spend much on training and would prefer candidates with some skill sets who are productive from day one. Also the level of job readiness of engineering graduates varies across different tier cities which denies them job opportunities even if they are equally qualified and skilled. But the major issue lies with mastery in English language along with issues in computer programming making these students ineligible for employment. The difference in English and cognitive skill ability may only be a function of the input quality of the students.

Current issues with engineering education which creates a gap between industry and academia:

Faulty education system comprising of semester systems and the process of continuous evaluation which have failed in fulfilling their desired roles as the students are not interested in continuous learning. Unless the specific purpose of such initiatives is properly understood by faculty and students alike, these methods likely would not work.

Ease of permission from approving bodies and governments has caused mushrooming of engineering colleges managed by little-known barely-trained educational trusts and organisations lacking in quality and credibility.

Changes in science and technology round the world with tremendous speed have not matched with the speed of Syllabus updating. Syllabus not updated regularly in areas which will actually help in the job industry after education. There is a big gap between what the industry per se requires and what engineering education equips its future employees with.

Lack of quality teachers in the ever growing number of engineering educational institutes as engineering graduates left out of the recruitment race go on to join as faculty at engineering institutes. The engineering faculty is not comprised of the very best of the industrythat have the skills to create brilliant students as the faculty salaries are not so attractive nor is the career growth.

Lack of innovation and research among students as they are not given the space and scope to think and innovate, to question and come up with solutions. Such are Indian students trained right from their primary education level that they are unable to make the shift from un-questioning learners to innovators in the job market.

Lack of skill-based education in engineering which deprives students of having hands-on training on the basis of the problems they are likely to encounter in the real world. Fresh engineering graduates face problems due to their insufficient understanding of basic concepts, technical information, lack of client-handling skills and insufficient knowledge across interdisciplinary domains

Companies give Importance to college name and visit only top colleges to recruit potential employees. Thus creating a lack in equal opportunities and also causes a deficiency of quality employees as this process ignores a huge number of meritorious students who do not study in top tier colleges.

The comparatively higher employment in the IT sector, students even from other disciplines take up IT-related courses. Thus, the end result of this inadequate education creates engineering graduates who are not well-versed in their core subjects or in IT.

Lack of proper English communicative skills, essential soft skills and low analytical and quantitative skills, among engineering graduates attributes to be other main reason for unemployment. The lack of ability of the individual to deliver his views effectively by even the most brilliant candidate affects negatively towards client-handling and team communication skills.