The engineering colleges in India produce more than 15 lakh engineering graduates every year. Those engineering graduates from Indian Institutes of Technology (IITS) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs) after their graduation are engaged in a race to secure admission in universities in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. Some of them prefer management education in leading institutes such as Indian Institutes of Management and they move on to FMCG, financial services or retail sector rather than joining an engineering firm. Others go after jobs in the Information Technology sector, which is highly rewarding.

Quality of engineering education in private engineering colleges

Every year there is an increase in the trend of engineering students failing to get jobs in engineering stream because of the lack of desires knowledge and quality. This shows that the quality of engineering education in most of the private engineering colleges do not meet the requirements. In India, there are very few private engineering colleges that can be considered to be good and rest of them are just working as money making institutions functioning with the prime motive of making profits. Such colleges admit students by taking capitation, charge huge fees and provides education for four years which does not have any value in the industry.

Number of unemployable engineering graduates on the rise

A recent survey by CRISIL has found that the most of the private engineering colleges lack infrastructure, faculty and industry interaction, which are essential for imparting quality education for the students. According to the observation made by the Wall Street Journal, about 75 per cent of the Indian engineering graduates are unemployable. Most of the leading Information Technology companies in India that absorb good quality engineers have been forced to extend the duration of the initial training programs. Such programs are focussed at fresh engineering graduates to equip them with the skills required in the industry. IT companies are not those who are into hardcore engineering activities.

Education in India do not encourage experimentation and creativity

There is a widespread concern over the quality of higher education system in India and we have come across opinions and criticisms from various part of the society. The education system in India is based on rote learning and do not encourage critical thinking and creative ideas. This is the same with the engineering education, which is based on critical analysis, experimentation, research and problem solving. How can we expect a child who is a product of rote system of learning to be creative and inquisitive?

Lack of quality teachers a concern too

The huge increase in the number of engineering colleges has lead to shortage in the number of qualified teachers. It had become a trend nowadays where students who do not get placed join colleges as lecturers. But now government has made it compulsory that lecturers in engineering college should have an M Tech degree. And now M Tech has become a lucrative course for colleges.

Attitude of the society needs change

The quality of the teachers and lack of infrastructure alone cannot be blamed for the present condition of the engineering education in the country. The society has a larger role in this, where professional education such as engineering and medicine is considered to be best options for a student to select. In most of the developed nations, students have the liberty to select the subject of their liking of their higher education. But in India, it is the parents who decide which course their child should pursue. They think that there are only two options available and all other courses are waste of time and money. So they want their child to pursue either medicine or engineering. In most of the cases, the students who are forced to take up engineering course do not have the ability, interest and aptitude to pursue the course. They become engineers without any engineering skills. Such a situation has led to increased demand for engineering education and thus has led to the setting up of so many engineering colleges in the country. This ultimately has resulted in the poor quality of engineering graduates from most of the private engineering colleges. The lucrative IT industry attracted many of the engineers and the handsome pay such professionals received made IT job a dream job for many. This resulted in the increase in demand for IT and computer engineering courses.

Concern regarding the quality of IIT graduates

The premier institutes in India such as the Indian Institutes of Technology are also facing the problem ofquality. Last year, Narayana Murthy, co-founder of Infosys has said that the quality of the engineering graduates from IITs is not of high standard. He noted that the students make it through the JEE by attending coaching classes and thus secure admission in the IITs. Such students lack basic understanding of the fundamentals. With the students paying attention to the entrance examinations, the attention on fundamentals and the plus 2 studies gets reduced. This results in poor performance in the IITs and at workplace. This observation by Narayana Murthy was supported by many of the IIT graduates and faculty. They say that the present students lack the quality IIT graduates used to have in the past.

Quality more important than quantity

The present system of engineering education gives importance to quantity than quality. But since we have lakhs of engineering seats vacant in India, it is high time that we focus our attention on quality. If we want to improve the quality of engineering education in India, we have to bring about huge improvement in infrastructure which not only include buildings, but also laboratories, equipments, machines, libraries and all those that supports learning. In addition to this we need to develop qualified and talented faculty members who will impart good quality education to students and also maintain close interaction with industry. The curriculum should be developed to meet the development of the student as a professional and to meet the requirement of the industry.

Let us hope that corrective actions are taken at the earliest and India will be home to the largest number of talented, skilled, and employable engineers in the world.