Since the DOTCOM boom in the early 1990s, the growth of job opportunities has been soaring high ( Setting aside the recession what we have been experiencing in the past 20 months) . On par with that, the number of engineers coming out of college has been on the rise tremendously year after year. But still in spite of the demand, the quality engineers that the industry expects are sparse in the enormous quantity of engineers coming out of colleges every year.
Making a sort of root cause analysis I felt the reason is narrowed down to just TWO. Its EITHER the mistake of the engineers themselves and the engineering institutions for not being up to the quality expectations of the industry OR the mistake of the educational system itself. Looking at the number of engineers who are deemed not qualified by many MNCs (its quite a LOT, needless to say), it doesn't make sense to say that all those engineers and the numerous institutions are erroneous, hence the latter is in the limelight.
In the early years of the last decade, as and when the engineers came out of college, if not all but most of them were offered a good position by various MNCs (sans the training what is given presently) because the curriculum prescribed by the educational system then, was ON PAR with the requirements of the industry. As time progressed, the technological advancements in almost every industry became a regular routine and of course their expectations and requirements too got REVISED accordingly. Whereas the corresponding change did not happen accordingly in the educational system. But since the industry cannot reject (as their HR requirements were ever growing) the subsequent genre of engineers just because they were not technically up to their benchmark, they introduced TRAINING for the engineers to ramp them up.
As time progressed there wasn't much of an updation to the curriculum (No idea why wasn't that the need of the hour, for the respective authorities) that made the engineers immediately employable. Hence the TRAINING process became a evident part prior to getting into any project and the latest is that it further worsened to eliminating people based on post TRAINING assessments. Even here, the incompetence of the engineers is not the major reason but the volume of knowledge that needs to be grasped and be materializable and the short training period is the actual mental pressure.
The present scenario is that the freshers are mostly quizzed and questioned by most of the MNCs on what extra certifications they have done and if so further on that and very less on what they have learnt as a part of their curriculum.
Its high time the brakes are pulled for bridging the "Technological gap" and the Industry - Institute coordination (in the true meaningful sense) be established for updation either ways which would make the passing out engineers feel truly competent and industry ready (in the technical front) as well as make the MNCs cut down their TRAINING expenditures and get back to the ways it was recruiting in the past.
Making a sort of root cause analysis I felt the reason is narrowed down to just TWO. Its EITHER the mistake of the engineers themselves and the engineering institutions for not being up to the quality expectations of the industry OR the mistake of the educational system itself. Looking at the number of engineers who are deemed not qualified by many MNCs (its quite a LOT, needless to say), it doesn't make sense to say that all those engineers and the numerous institutions are erroneous, hence the latter is in the limelight.
In the early years of the last decade, as and when the engineers came out of college, if not all but most of them were offered a good position by various MNCs (sans the training what is given presently) because the curriculum prescribed by the educational system then, was ON PAR with the requirements of the industry. As time progressed, the technological advancements in almost every industry became a regular routine and of course their expectations and requirements too got REVISED accordingly. Whereas the corresponding change did not happen accordingly in the educational system. But since the industry cannot reject (as their HR requirements were ever growing) the subsequent genre of engineers just because they were not technically up to their benchmark, they introduced TRAINING for the engineers to ramp them up.
As time progressed there wasn't much of an updation to the curriculum (No idea why wasn't that the need of the hour, for the respective authorities) that made the engineers immediately employable. Hence the TRAINING process became a evident part prior to getting into any project and the latest is that it further worsened to eliminating people based on post TRAINING assessments. Even here, the incompetence of the engineers is not the major reason but the volume of knowledge that needs to be grasped and be materializable and the short training period is the actual mental pressure.
The present scenario is that the freshers are mostly quizzed and questioned by most of the MNCs on what extra certifications they have done and if so further on that and very less on what they have learnt as a part of their curriculum.
Its high time the brakes are pulled for bridging the "Technological gap" and the Industry - Institute coordination (in the true meaningful sense) be established for updation either ways which would make the passing out engineers feel truly competent and industry ready (in the technical front) as well as make the MNCs cut down their TRAINING expenditures and get back to the ways it was recruiting in the past.
This makes sense as all we trained in CAMPUS TO CORPORATE and feel the difference (Technological gap). It is a new way of looking the problem. Good one. Keep Blogging
ReplyDeleteeven the brightest of the lot get to open up only cos of the training . but whatever said and done its only the survival of the fittest who are capable of balancing their skills . good one . come up with many more interesting stuff
ReplyDeleteIt all comes down to passion of an individual.. these days joining an engineering college (esp in India) has become default and no matter wat course you take up.. u end up in s/w..
ReplyDeletethis is a never ending problem.. :)
The main problem lies in the unenthusiastic faculty and , more importantly , the lack of incentives for good performance . At present , most marks are awarded based on a student's presentation skills than the actual content .
ReplyDeleteEven if newer syllabus is introduced , the above problems would still exist .
Coming back to the syllabus , newer doesnt necessarily mean better . For eg , imagine how the situation would be if microprocessor syllabus started off with some pentium processor instead of 8085 . that would definitely not work ,since 8085 is the base for all other microprocessors .not knowing it would lead to a very weak foundation .However , that doesnt mean newer stuff should not be taught .
At present , most of the placed students are from non-CSE/IT departments . because most CSE/IT students could not grasp basic programming concepts , including C .Going by your argument ,C should be replaced with something new , say .NET . Do you think that would work ? Most certainly not .
In TamilNadu itself there are 300 n odd engg colleges. Anyone with mere pass mark can get admission into one or the other.
ReplyDeleteTo rate the colleges we take the scale of academic ranks and placements.This leads the colleges to turn their attention towards spoon feeding their wards and make them score high in exams, that again used to get good academic records & placements. Regarding placements companys are spending valuble time and money to train the so called "Bright Freshers".
It is in the hands of People(Lectures, Students, Parents, etc) who are in this education system to make the student to think innovative,to experiment facing the challenges in new technologies, to have a third prespective on anything and competent enough to creat new ones rather than following managers instructions to carry out anything.