AP tech graduates find no takers!
A recent study has revealed that only 10 per cent of the state’s engineering graduates are ‘actually employable.’ The major ‘skill gap’ has been blamed for the poor state of affairs. While about one lakh technical graduates (the most in India) pass out of Andhra Pradesh’s engineering colleges every year, most of them are not even “employable”.
While the national employability average is 25 per cent, a recent Nasscom McKinsey study has revealed that only around 10 per cent of the state’s fresh engineering graduates are “actually employable”.
Even the state government has officially admitted that less than 10 per cent engineering graduates produced in the state are employable.
It did so in the form of a government order (GO RT No.499) issued in July this year while constituting a high-level committee to suggest measures to improve the situation.
Companies, however, are forced to recruit these
“unemployable graduates” due to severe shortage of a qualified technical workforce. According to Nasscom, an average company invests 16 weeks to train these graduates in areas such as technical skills, soft skills, company orientation and process-specific domain skills. As a result, the training cost of tech companies has risen steadily in the last few years. Continuing to recruit a trainable pool, however, is not a sustainable option going forward.
Similarly most IT-BPO companies also spend a significant amount training new recruits. In fact, the amount spent on training new recruits is equivalent to 2 per cent of industry revenues.
The Nasscom survey points to the major skill gap that exists among engineering graduates and makes a strong case for the government and engineering colleges to focus more on
employability and quality.
Academics say that the Nasscom findings shows that the faculty and deans of every college have to closely interact with employers to design education programmes that respond to the specific skill demands of the employers.
Senior professors also say the root of the problem lies in the “low-qualifying marks” in Eamcet prescribed by the state government to make students eligible for admissions into engineering colleges.
Thus even below-average students are getting admissions in engineering colleges due to the huge availability of seats and this was making all the difference to the employability of students.
Securing just 25 per cent marks in Eamcet is enough to get a seat in an engineering college given that the state has 2.8 lakh seats in about 700 colleges. This year, nearly a lakh of seats went empty due to poor response from students.
A student from general category need to score just 40 marks out of 160 in Eamcet and for SC and ST students, even “zero marks”
will fetch a seat as there are no qualifying marks for them.
“In these circumstances, how can we expect students with poor subject knowledge till 10+2 to understand and learn engineering in colleges? How can we expect them to have reasonable soft skills which make them employable? Unless the qualifying marks are raised in Eamcet, we cannot expect better results in the future,” said Prof. V.V.S. Murthy, principal of KVSR Engineering College.
Academics also say this is a short-sighted view and are worried about the employability factor. “The minimum marks required to enter engineering colleges should be left to universities and not to the government. If politicians take decisions on education, it will not benefit the system,” said Prof B.
Shanmugam, the academic head of an engineering college.
Source: DC