Engineering education needs a major rethink in India. The National Employability Report has revealed that less than 8 percent of engineering graduates in India are employable in “core engineering roles”. The report indicated that the skills gap prevalent in the engineering industry in India is crippling the number of hires.
This is the second report of the year that has surveyed the engineering situation in the country. In January, a separate study revealed that 80% of the engineering graduates from India are unemployable. The numbers have become even worse since then.
Varun Aggarwal, CTO of Aspiring Minds, the company behind the report said: “There are several problems with regard to employability in core engineering roles. We need to excite students about these jobs. Everyone’s focus today is on IT. We want students to design and build things. We need emphasis on the basics, for instance, basic electrical engineering, basic concepts of mechanics and so on.”
150,000 engineering graduates were surveyed for the report. The results revealed which branches of engineering were getting the least employment in India:
- Mechanical design engineer: 5.55% of graduates applicable
- Civil engineering: 6.48% of graduates applicable
- Chemical design engineer: 1.64% graduates applicable (lowest employability percentage of the report)
This compared to IT roles that scored considerably higher results:
- Software Engineer – IT services: 17.91% graduates applicable
- Hardware networking: 37.06% graduate applicable
“The science of manufacturing has moved way ahead but we continue to teach outdated concepts to students. For India to become the world’s manufacturing hub, we need to lead from the front in our understanding of cutting edge methods, knowledge-driven management, and implementation capability,” said Aggarwal.
News: NDTV