Are TN engineering graduates least employable?

COIMBATORE: In what should serve as a wake-up call to the state’s education system, a national-level assessment has placed Tamil Nadu’s engineering graduates as ‘least employable’.The recently released National Employability Report (NER) 2011, compiled by a private employability assessment company ‘Aspiring Minds’, says only 10 per cent of  engineering graduates in Tamil Nadu recruited by information technology firms are actually employable. The conclusions are based on a survey conducted across 16 States. National figures are none too impressive either. “Even though India produces more than five lakh engineers annually, only 17.45 per cent of them are employable for the IT services sector, while only a miniscule 3.51 per cent are appropriately trained to be directly deployed on projects. Further, only 2.68 per cent are employable in IT product companies, which require greater understanding of computer science and algorithms,” the report says.Commenting on the dismal show by Tamil Nadu, one of the State’s respected academicians and former Anna University Vice Chancellor, Prof. M Anandakrishnan says the “scandalous” higher education system is to blame.“In private engineering colleges students are in essence sent to ‘coaching centres’ where they are ‘coached’ or ‘trained’ to pass the examination based on the syllabi with no additional ability or qualification,” explains Anandakrishnan, who currently heads the Board of Governors, IIT- Kanpur.“The issue is that post-secondary education today focuses on syllabi alone and industries seek beyond what a syllabus is capable of teaching - like communication and creative skills, and team spirit. Most colleges do not pay attention to anything other than the syllabus,” he adds.Surprisingly, breaking stereotypes, the NER has rated the employability quotient of engineering graduates Delhi, Bihar and Jharkhand the highest. Delhi has emerged as a hub with high standards of education at all levels, attracting the best minds from across the country. While Bihar–Jharkhand may seem paradoxical, one can understand this trend by the high ‘self-selection effect’. Bihar and Jharkhand, put together, have around 35 engineering colleges as compared to 70-80 engineering colleges in any other similar size state. This leads to a fierce competition among education and only the best end up getting into engineering campuses, the majority of which are run by the government,” the report says.