In continuation of my previous article [2-0] which explained about Academic Structure and Evolution of Engineering course Sections, I will continue in this article which explains about the new challenges created towards workforce availability.
Availability of workforce of different levels of expertise and experience is very much required in controlling the impact of Operational and Production cost. This will be one of the main pillar helps the companies to move from China and choosing India over other competitive countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, etc.,
Section-3: Volcaneering - Volcanic Eruption of Engineering Seats
Among so many available courses, the engineering course has an advantage in terms of providing career opportunities with an academic duration of 4 years. Having the capacity to provide Social and Economical status when compared with many other courses made the Engineering course stand on top of the student’s choices. So, the Engineering course as a preferable choice.
A sudden rush from AICTE and state governments to establish engineering institutions gave the country a flood of Engineering institutions. India reached a capacity of producing more than a million Engineering Graduates per year. In this time, many mid-sized towns in the country got the presence of one or more Engineering colleges. This is clearly visible in Southern states of India where the Southern States had a capacity of nearly 40% of total India’s Capacity.
As engineering seats increased like a Volcano Burst, the ratio between aspirants and no.of seats came drastically low. This helped many students to get easy admission into their dream course.
This trend of increasing seats and colleges continued for many years. In 2013 India reached a capacity to produce 1.7 million Engineering graduates per year. The profitability in Engineering institutions made many private investors venture into establishing Engineering colleges. All other academic areas like Polytechnic, ITI got limited to Government. Hence the investments in other academic areas like Polytechnic, ITI, etc., were limited from Government Funds.
Easy access to get into engineering college for most of the students tumbled many other course’s buckets. The courses like BBM/BCA became obsolete. Reduced inflow for few courses weakened multiple Academic Bridges.
The below picture represents the scenario: The dotted line represents a weakened bridge. Yellow represents reduced flow. Red represents “Near to Obsolete”.
An Emerged new Challenge: IT became only focus on most students irrespective of their Core Engineering Stream.
At the same time, many new organizations have started/expanding IT operations in India. India’s own IT service organizations started recruiting students in thousands. Hence, a major chunk of the recruitments was limited to the IT Industry.
Even though students opted for non-software engineering streams like Civil, Mechanical, Electronics, etc., having expertise in Software became more important in getting a job. This led students to turn down strengthening their own core stream and start focusing only on software. This also made the availability of employees in other streams less.
The software industry landscape has changed as time progresses especially in terms of competition, pricing, etc., which started impacting the growth of the IT industry’s demands. Many countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, etc., got into offering competitive pricing to MNCs made India’s cost of labor no more considered as Cheap.
The irresponsibility of AICTE of not updating the syllabus made education’s quality reached far below to the Industry’s expectation in the majority of colleges. As per the analysis of technical education in India, more than 90% of engineering students don't have enough programming skills that are required for the Industry. This is giving additional responsibility and investment to the Service organizations in establishing world-class training centers. For example, Infosys has a 350 Acre state-of-art campus dedicated to training [2-1]. The primary objective of this training center is to make fresh graduates be Industry ready.
Reduced demand from the industry Year by year, colleges started informing about Vacant seats to AICTE. Many engineering colleges requested AICTE formally to accept the closing down operations. In the 2019 year, 27K+ in Karnataka, 80K+ in Tamilnadu, 40K+ in Andhra Pradesh reported vacant seats. Shockingly, many engineering colleges reported zero admissions.[2-2] and around 226 colleges are nearing shutdown [2-3]
In my observation, I think India had a more %of diverse work-force available before 15 to 20 years compared with the current situation. Because for students, it had a place for everyone and a way for everyone to reach their ultimate goal using the academic bridges. The earlier academic structure had the ability to provide the workforce with various experience levels to the organizations. The earlier academic system had the flexibility of establishing institutions in tier-3, tier-4 towns. In the earlier academic structure student core expertise remained to their opted subject. But, in the current system, everyone’s core strength targets majorly towards software irrespective of their core-stream. This made the unavailability of mid-level talent and non-IT talent in the country like Architectural, Semi-conductor, Electrical, Automobile, etc.,
In the upcoming part: I would like to focus on the real view of India and China with possible numbers associated. What are the pain points and blockers to be focussed on? Open to listen to your suggestions in the comments section.
References:
[2-0] https://nichenametla.blogspot.com/2020/04/is-india-ready-to-facilitate-companies.html
[2-1] https://officechai.com/stories/infosys-mysore-campus-office/
[2-2] https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/andhra-pradesh/2019/aug/04/fewer-takers-for-engineering-seats-in-ap-2013950.html
[2-3] https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil-nadu/2019/may/18/16-lakh-engineering-seats-cut-in-colleges-across-india-1978336.html
