Survey shows only 1/10th of engg grads are employable

COIMBATORE: Only one-tenth of students of tier 2, 3 and 4 engineering colleges in the state are readily employable, shows the national survey by a private educational agency. Even after interventional training, one-third of them are not employable, it said.
Amit Bansal, CEO of Purpleleap, a talent management firm said the survey was conducted across 12 states with graduates who had scored more than 60% marks.More than communication skills, it is the lack of technical skills that featured prominently in the survey, he said.
“This is not surprising,” said Jayaprakash Gandhi, an educational consultant from Chennai. According to him, students can communicate in their mother tongue and English can be learnt later. What is more important is that they know how to apply theoretical knowledge they have acquired in college.
The focus in colleges is to prepare students for exams. “The lack of practical applications in technical education makes graduates unemployable,” he said. Amit Bansal suggested that students need to be given opportunities to be part of projects. “Being part of an actual project will train them for future jobs. Software companies like Google and Microsoft conduct international-level programmes in colleges. Likewise, national firms should also conduct programmes. However, professors say only few students take up the offer to participate in such projects.“
V Lakshmiprabha, principal of Government College of Technology in Coimbatore said this may be because students have a huge work load and don’t have much free time to participate in such projects.
Jayaprakash suggested that engineers, like teachers and lawyers, must have a ‘engineering eligibility test’. “This will help streamline standards of engineering education.