Proposal for professional intervention for engineering colleges

Employability and professional competence among technical graduates has been a subject
drawing attention of potential employers, industry associations, HR professionals, and even
policy making bodies such as the ministry of education and HRD. It is proclaimed that as per
records, India produces one of the largest technical and engineering manpower in the world,
quantitatively. If this is so and if the products coming out of educational institutions are
comparable with those from institutions elsewhere, why is it that we lag miserably when it
comes to outputs that can be linked to such large no. of educated manpower? Why is it that
only about 20% of the graduates coming out of our technical institutions are considered
employable? Why is it that except a small % of our graduates from premier institutes end up
with employment offers they consider menial or demeaning or the graduates switch jobs
quickly, reflecting either poor fitment, low level of satisfaction for the employer / employee,
expectation mismatch? Why is it that we are not able to consider ourselves ranking at the top
in any field? Why is it that we end up taking up glorified low end jobs in the overseas
market? Why is it that post the IT driven euphoria, engineering graduates from less reputed
institutions find it difficult to find meaningful and satisfying employment? Why is it that
professional companies end picking up may be 10% of those offering to join or only from top
rated institutions such as the IIT/IIMs?

The answer to this lies in expectation and delivery mismatch. What employers expect from
professional graduates is not just superficial technical competence reflected through the
examination grade cards, but well grounded and rounded competent professionals, who can
be put on responsible jobs, seamlessly, after minimal organization specific orientation.

The remedy to this according to a team of experienced professionals (IIT/IIM/NIT genre)

sitting on both sides of the table is to ingrain certain desirable qualities in the professionals
early in their professional educational phase. This could include sensitizing and inculcating
desirable attitudinal and behavioral traits in the graduating individuals, providing managerial
orientation to technical professionals so that technicians address real life problems they are to
handle from a business, management and practical perspective, able to deliver real solutions

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to real problems. The graduating professionals also need to be put through experiential
learning on life skills, emotional intelligence and maturity, managerial qualities so that the
finer polishing before display in the show cases happens. The incremental value addition that
happens through this short duration finishing treatment surpasses value that would have been
realized / created during the long technical education process.

Apart from these finishing touches to the product, at the institutional level, we believe there
is enough scope for improving the input mechanism / tools that into creating the outputs
called technical graduates; the management of the institutions such as the head of the
institutions, the policy making body, the teaching / training media; body of faculty.

Education just like any other profession is to be conceived and managed like any other
professional activity. We need to examine top down starting from the vision/mission rooted in
the minds of the drivers, the strategies to address opportunities and needs, the positioning of
the institution in the market / among stakeholders, the systems/processes that need to be in
place to effectively and seamlessly translate vision/mission and goals into reality, exploit
technology driven productivity and service quality enhancement tools and strategies.

We would like to propose our interest in a productive and professionally satisfying

association with your institution to derive joint value and mutual benefit. The association will
also enable your institution to introspect, link with the industry from an industry academia
professional association perspective, generate tangible as well as brand value for you
institute. While the tangible value would derive from industry sponsorships of programs,
consultancy, institution of chairs in areas of specialization, better placement for your
graduates, the brand value could be monetized through enhanced in-take in the long term,
higher fee structure, grants for specific programs, being recognized as centers of excellence
nationally and internationally.

We look forward to an opportunity to discuss our views, your thoughts and arrive at a
workable plan for the long term interest of our society.