The industry & education disconnect in India
It looks like the industry and education disconnect in India is hurting almost everyone involved. The industry seems to be constantly complaining about the general lack of high quality engineers and are reluctant to recruit engineers; while the engineers themselves find it very difficult to work in high-tech companies after they are recruited. The software product companies, while India's got very few of them, say hiring has become a bigger challenge for them in the recent years.
The result of this - the industry isn't producing high-tech innovations, products and services for the global markets from India and the unemployment is growing rapidly. Engineers are opting for call center jobs and some are happily doing marketing / sales jobs that require no technical knowledge. Can this situation be fixed?
I think yes!
The root cause of the issue seems to be the greater and widening industry & education disconnect. I mean, why should companies put a fresh engineer in a rigorous 3 - 6 months intense training program after he/she's completed 4 years of formal education? Someone needs to think about it. It turns out that the engineering education in India isn't preparing the engineers for the actual jobs they're expected to do.
How to fix it?
Currently, if I'm not mistaken, the course contents of engineering education is decided by the academicians; who base it all on theory. I'd suspect many of the curriculum setters have never worked in the industry - to know what the current industry demands. I personally was 'shocked' while interviewing a Computer Science candidate that he/she thought he'd be asked to write programs similar to 'Fibonacci Series' after he joins the company. It wasn't his fault; but it was an eye opener for me.
I think the industry should closely work with the academia to ensure that the engineers are exposed to the latest in engineering & technology. They should also get a chance to work in the real corporate environment before they graduate.
I'm not sure if this is the right way of fixing it - because it *may* make the engineers think in a particular way - the corporate way and may destroy their creativity.
What do you all think?
The result of this - the industry isn't producing high-tech innovations, products and services for the global markets from India and the unemployment is growing rapidly. Engineers are opting for call center jobs and some are happily doing marketing / sales jobs that require no technical knowledge. Can this situation be fixed?
I think yes!
The root cause of the issue seems to be the greater and widening industry & education disconnect. I mean, why should companies put a fresh engineer in a rigorous 3 - 6 months intense training program after he/she's completed 4 years of formal education? Someone needs to think about it. It turns out that the engineering education in India isn't preparing the engineers for the actual jobs they're expected to do.
How to fix it?
Currently, if I'm not mistaken, the course contents of engineering education is decided by the academicians; who base it all on theory. I'd suspect many of the curriculum setters have never worked in the industry - to know what the current industry demands. I personally was 'shocked' while interviewing a Computer Science candidate that he/she thought he'd be asked to write programs similar to 'Fibonacci Series' after he joins the company. It wasn't his fault; but it was an eye opener for me.
I think the industry should closely work with the academia to ensure that the engineers are exposed to the latest in engineering & technology. They should also get a chance to work in the real corporate environment before they graduate.
I'm not sure if this is the right way of fixing it - because it *may* make the engineers think in a particular way - the corporate way and may destroy their creativity.
What do you all think?
Replies
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Sarathkumar ChandrasekaranI agree to your suggestion and present scenario also depicts the same problem.As most of us had discussed about the change in syllabus or change in education system , we couldnt come to a clear and possible idea in it in present system.Industries must tie up with the educational institutions and give a practical workstational environment while we gather theoretical knowledge.Thumbs up for your solution. -
Saandeep SreerambatlaYou have frequent industrial visits, take an example of an electrical engineer(myself) we had gone to 3 power plant to understand the process.
All they showed us was the computer which control the flow of water and switches to turn on and off if power generation is stopped or started which didnt help us.
Instead, what should be done is training/work in those plants for selected engineers (which I did by a known source) to actually understand what is rotor how it rotates?
How and where the step up is done, how are the losses actually controlled? to list them there are many things! so I think that change should be done.
I still remember my visit to New Jersey when a kid of 10 came to Morristown National Historical Park , to understand what was taught in their school.
It was his assignment.
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