Factors that are Hurting the Employability of Recent Engineering Graduates in India

Factors that are Hurting the Employability of Recent Engineering Graduates in India

Dr. Amartya Kumar Bhattacharya

BCE (Hons.) ( Jadavpur ), MTech ( Civil ) ( IIT Kharagpur ), PhD ( Civil ) ( IIT Kharagpur ), Cert.MTERM ( AIT Bangkok ), CEng(I), FIE, FACCE(I), FISH, FIWRS, FIPHE, FIAH, FAE, MIGS, MIGS – Kolkata Chapter, MIGS – Chennai Chapter, MISTE, MAHI, MISCA, MIAHS, MISTAM, MNSFMFP, MIIBE, MICI, MIEES, MCITP, MISRS, MISRMTT, MAGGS, MCSI, MIAENG, MMBSI, MBMSM

Chairman and Managing Director,

MultiSpectra Consultants,

23, Biplabi Ambika Chakraborty Sarani,

Kolkata – 700029, West Bengal, INDIA.

E-mail: dramartyakumar@gmail.com

Website: https://multispectraconsultants.com

My finding is that a lot of recent engineering graduates in India are unemployable. Why? Because they lack key skills.

To start with, when I was a student, there were only five Indian Institutes of Technology and only five engineering colleges in West Bengal. Getting admitted to an engineering course was very tough and very prestigious. I actually got a higher rank in the medical entrance examination than in the engineering entrance examination but naturally opted to study engineering because my dream was to study engineering, not to study medicine.

Nowadays, with the proliferation of engineering colleges, the standard of engineering graduates has declined. Basic problem-solving skills are lacking. In our times, the Internship was considered a necessary - and vital - part of education and getting a stipend for doing the Internship was unthinkable. I did not get any stipend for doing my Internship. Nowadays, students want stipends to do Internship although a company actually spends time and resources on Interns.

Supplementary education has become necessary for engineering students. Why? Because engineering curricula have become degraded in India. Take for example, a basic subject like Fluid Mechanics. By and large, this subject has remained unchanged over the past quarter century. Typically, simple problems are discussed and taught like the motion of a fluid between concentric cylinders. What will happen if the cylinders are not concentric is not discussed, not even qualitatively.

Now, such ideal cases are rarely to be met with in practice. In Fluvial Hydraulics, rivers, being formed by nature, do not have simple geometries. To model rivers mathematically, some sort of idealisation of the geometry is a must. These things are not taught to engineering students, again underlining the need for supplementary education for engineering students.

In practically every subject, idealised scenarios are taught to engineering students giving them no clue as to how more complex scenarios are to be handled in practice. All these hurt the employability of recent engineering graduates and also make supplementary education for engineering students a must.

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