Making engg graduates industry-ready

Taking a further step towards making engineering students "industry-ready and thus employable", the premier software association, Nasscom, is in the final stages of launching its "finishing school" courses in seven National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and at IIT-Roorkee.

The NITs that will house the schools include Trichy, Surathkal (Karnataka), Warangal, Jaipur, Durgapur, Kozhikode and Kurukshetra.

"We expect about 1,000 students to begin with (the pilot stage) since each batch in these eight places will have around 100 students each," Kiran Karnik, President, Nasscom, told Business Standard.

Students from all branches of engineering who have completed the degree in 2006 with 60 per cent and above are eligible.

The 6-8 week courses, which will begin in a couple of months, will concentrate on empowering students with technical (60 per cent) and soft skills (40 per cent). The soft skills will comprise communication and presentation skills besides focusing on team work.

The course fee is around Rs 5,000 and Karnik "hopes the industry will pitch in with scholarships". "The infrastructure is being taken care of by the institutions and some expenses are being borne by the government," explains Karnik, adding he hopes companies will pay a certain sum as an "incentive" when they select students from here. Nasscom is focusing on students from tier II-III institutions "since we want to concent rate on the less-advantaged institutions".

Nasscom has predicted a shortfall of over 5 lakh employees for IT-ITeS sectors by 2010 and according to a McKinsey Global Institute study, undertaken on behalf of Nasscom, India produces about 3.6 lakh engineering graduates and more than 6 lakh arts and science graduates every year but only 25 per cent of the engineering graduates and 10 per cent of the non-engineering graduates are "employable".

"These short-term courses should help the industry with additional 10 per cent employable students," says Karnik. But these are "quick wins". In the medium term (a year from now), Nasscom plans to make this course a part of the regular engineering degree curriculum.

"The greatest challenge and worrisome factor is that there's an acute faculty shortage and fewer students opting for PhDs in science and engineering (read future faculty). Most of the faculty today are in the 55 plus age group and due for retirement. It's imperative that we create an environment that is conducive to students taking up to research and eventually join as faculty," says Karnik. Industry estimates put the number of overall PhDs at less than 5,000 in science and engineering.

Moroever, there are fewer than 100 students currently doing their PhDs. Nasscom has this problem "on its radar" and is in "discussions with the industry" for grants to professor above their salaries "in a bid to make the teaching profession attractive enough".

Meanwhile, the software body also intends getting its Assessment of Competence (NAC) test online in a year's time to build "a whole training ecosystem".

"All these steps (including government initiatives) give us a sense of comfort that we will close the gap (read shortfall of employees) in the IT-ITeS sector."