According to the survey, jointly carried out by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the World Bank, 64 percent of surveyed employers are "somewhat", "not very", or "not at all" satisfied with the quality of engineering graduates' skills.
The top three most important general skills identified were integrity, reliability and teamwork, while the top three most important specific skills are entrepreneurship, communication in English and use of modern tools and technologies.
The survey has said that employers are relatively satisfied with the graduates when it comes to communication skills in English, but not with the graduates' reliability.
"If colleges want to improve the employability of their graduates, they have to focus on reducing these important skill gaps through improvements in curriculum and teaching methods." said Hiroshi Saeki, an analyst at the World Bank.
"Most important, graduates have to be able to formulate, analyse, and solve a real life problem using standard engineering techniques," he added.
The survey also said the companies differed in the kind of engineers they would like to hire.
IT companies demand advanced computer skills and communication in English, while infrastructure firms want engineers with strong knowledge of math and abilities to use modern tools and technologies.
Added FICCI secretary general Amit Mitra: "This finding shows that the faculty and deans of each college have to closely interact with employers to design education programmes that respond to the specific skill demands of the employers."
According to Andreas Blom, senior education economist at the World Bank: "The survey highlights the need for colleges to focus on the skills of the graduates. Each college should define the set of skills that a graduate is supposed to have after each semester.
Further, colleges need to change pedagogical style from teacher-centric to student-centric, and include more assignments for students to independently analyse and apply tools on real life problems, he added.
"Only through such changes in the teaching-learning process will the future engineers become more employable."
Source: Indo-Asian news service
That's a perfect super-critical analysis; and is good to be followed. But, practically the complete system needs to be re-oriented, so that a student's interest and capability may be sharpened, which would provide more opportunities for career development. At present, strong competitive skills are fostered which although expands the student's capabilities, but those aren't producing any lucrative opportunities. And these are being inculcated right through from basic education, which definitely needs complete revamp. Skills are rightly developed once an opportunity is available.
The quality of education in India needs drastic changes not only in engineering but also in other field too. The issue here is the methodoly, that is how to create engineers useful for the society and the industry. While every industry needs industry specific skills and knowledge and ability to apply such knowledge in real life situation. The society needs engineers with integrity and reliability.
Do any of our institution teaches code of ethics for professional engineers or managers? What they should be, how to behave and how to uphold professionalism, standards and commitment to society and display integrity? As a result we have too many corrupt engineers across India engaged in government public utility services offering third class services, product and result. We have poor quality drinking water supply, chocked foul water and storm water drainage, poor quality electricity supply, poor quality roads, poor waste disposal and environment protection, these are services the society cannot use efficiently and produced by our own engineers collaborating with corruption.
Do we have enough training on safety, security, interpersonal skills, communication, negotiation, organizing, leadership, team working and team development which are essential for today's engineers?
The government can contribute by updating outdated standards of the ISI with more updated standards taking all technological advancement and changes. Regulations like Indian electricity act etc. needs updating based on input from Industry, professional bodies and expert in the field to take advantages of opportunities offered by advancement of technology and applications.
College Faculties, library, curriculum and workshop needs continuous improvement and professional development to acquire knowledge and skills required to produce skilled engineers.
Mushrooming colleges with out the need to satisfy techinical standards of par excellence cannot be expected to do these things.
We all in one way or the other agree with these findings. Its not the first time. But where are the efforts in our institutions to improve these standards. On the contrary these standards seems to be falling by the day. Communication skills has never been good in Indians, but now even the basic education standards are falling, because of the large growth of so called private engineering colleges. These institutes are nothing but money making commercial stereotype centers. When will we realize that a great harm is being done and our reputation is taking backseat in international communities when we compare ourselves with our counterparts in other countries. Why there is a need to award engineering degrees to stereotype students who don't deserve it? Its a national disgrace and shame.
Hi Gentlemen.
Send these types to us .We teach "numbers English" and insist on their learning English, the very basics and even advanced English, though their univs do not expect it.
MBAs too, who dont now how to write letters of application.One began with," Hi!" and when asked in an interview,"Are you an only child "? said, " I am a child"!
Iris Devadason
Director, CEFL/DSI, Bangalore
So far as the quality of education in India is concerned, we have extremes. Look at the IITs and then have a look at the Private colleges that have mushroomed around every street corner of your city. The later is the result of our unscrupulous politicians and each one of us, is also a party to it.
These low standard (or I would say NO standards colleges) have put a dent on our reputation. They have squeezed poor people till the last penny. AICTE or DTEs, whatever you call them, have not been able to check the worthiness of these colleges and the owners are out on a money minting spree.
Moreover, we are still to move beyond 'Engineering or Medical' mentality so far as higher education is concerned.
A very appropriate finding. And timely too! Taking the risk of being branded extremist, I would like to bluntly state the following - all gathered from number of interviews I held over the years, in order to open the eyes of the larger Intelligentsia apart the Ignorant Politicos,
An electrical engg grad from Vijayawada has NOT understood "ohms' Law"
98% Engineering Grads -mostly from "private" Colleges actually can't tell me a Number written down on paper is a negative number or positive!! Yes! It's a Live Tragedy. Test it yourself. Ask these Grads a Number like 684.565599999 x 10e(-)78956 is
>0
or
<0
All these guys retort it's <0, i.e. negative!!
Well, You may say this is not such a big deal, wait for more of findings here...
After prolonged interaction with these GRADS - actually we teach them a lot of concepts during these pre interview briefings, we find these GRADS getting nowhere near 10/100 in any of the tests. exceptions here prove the rule.
We interacted with their teachers, alas!
most of them did not get any JOBS elsewhere. Most of them do not have any inclination towards teaching. And believe me,
they can't qualify with 30/100 in any test we put across.
Communications Skills among teachers /Students are non existent.
But newcomers joining these colleges paying huge amount of Hard Earned Money /Loans, with HUGE expectations. All this will disappear during the course of attending a few weeks of "classes" except they go on paying "tution fees" and scoring "distinctions" in a meaningless examinations.
Why they don't Demand better Services? Do the very same guys accept if I deliver a poor Television set costing a few thousand rupees?