Engineer them to win

There is a need to increase campus-industry engagements for students to help them meet the requirements of the dynamic sector.

Andhra Pradesh has more than 700 engineering colleges and is generating around 3 lakh engineers in different streams. Many industry experts say that only 10 per cent of the engineering graduates are employable and some of them even worry that IT industry will move away from the country, if the sector doesn’t provide quality human resource.

It is not completely true that the students are not suitable to the industry. If that were the case, many industries like IT would not have boomed in the country. However, the role of educational institute is different from industrial human resource needs. Each industry has its own requirement and it is extremely difficult to tailor make students for all of these industries, said KV Vishnu Raju, chairman, Sri Vishnu Educational Society.

The fundamentals are taught at university level either it is in US or in India. The students who develop strong fundamentals can understand and pick up industrial requirements easily at a later time, said Raju.

“Technology is changing rapidly especially in industries like IT and electronics. This is necessitating colleges to be in tuned with the industry and have regular interaction with them. For instance, we have recently started internships for second and third year students in our college. Where in the students work for the industry during their summer holidays and understand the skills required by the industry and will develop them overtime. Such kind of initiatives from the colleges will bridge the gap between what industry wants and what is being provided the curriculum,” he said.

Industrialists from different sectors should also venture in to education, which will enable the industrial culture in the colleges. This will create quality and necessary employees for their self needs as well, he said.

Talking about faculty, he said, “The quantity in human resource has also come at the cost of its quality. Not only the private colleges, but also even some of the government colleges do not have sufficient faculties. The faculty are not being produced in proportion to the growing number of engineering students. The country is unable to produce sufficient PhD and even MTech graduates who can teach and train these engineering students. The colleges need more of these people for teaching in engineering colleges.”

When asked whether the education system is aimed at overall personality development, Raju said, “Students are going through tremendous pressure in clearing the entrance exams. Most of their childhood, especially from Class VIII to Class XII, spent aimed at these exams. The overall personality development is compromised by not playing games and by not participating in extracurricular activities. The creativity of the child is being killed in the race for these entrance exams.

“However, at least in engineering colleges, there is need to bring in humanities courses. For instance, In US or in the UK, the student should do minimum number of non-engineering subjects like history or philosophy,”

“Science and arts go hand in hand and will be essential to the overall development of the student,” he adds.

Tags: campus-industry engagements, engineering colleges, engineers

Category: Business, Business News