The Hindu Business Line : Empowering engineers through training

Through initiatives called campus connect, we work with 380 engineering colleges to make sure that more people from disadvantaged sections have access to training. Yet, students in the metros who have access to better education have an edge. That is the reality.

— MR MOHANDAS PAI, HR CHIEF, INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES

Rasheeda Bhagat

Infosys Technologies has taken the lead in initiating training programmes to enable qualified engineers from socially disadvantaged sections to get jobs on merit in top companies, its HR chief, Mr Mohandas Pai, told Business Line in an interview.

Excerpts from the interview:

How did this begin and what are the steps you are taking to be more socially inclusive?

At a broad contextual level, all IT companies have a fair and non-discriminatory employment policy, based on merit. But though we don’t have a bias against anybody, the nature of the job demands that people are intelligent and articulate, know English and can think on their feet. These attributes are required because ours is a global business. When we go to colleges all over India, we find that students in urban areas are smart, articulate and confident with a good personality. In the smaller towns people are self-effacing, diffident, and lack confidence; though they might get good marks, they are not articulate, and hence might not get good jobs. But we have a very fair and open employment policy and don’t discriminate against anybody.

Against that backdrop, let’s look at the sheer numbers the IT industry needs to hire. Last year, it hired 3.8 lakh people and this year we’re hiring 4.35 lakh people. For campus hiring for 2008, we are going to 1,000 of the 1,700 engineering colleges in India, and of these about 250 are in the big metros. The hit rate in these colleges is very small; maybe we’ll get four to five in each of them.

And what would it be in the bigger cities?

In a good Tier-1 or Tier-2 city college, we might get 30-40 people, in smaller colleges about 10. But we clearly see that talent and potential exists everywhere. So through initiatives called campus connect we work with 380 engineering colleges to make sure that more people from disadvantaged sections have access to training and we also train teachers.

Yet, students in the metros and larger cities, who have access to better education and teachers, have an edge. That is the reality. So when this debate about education started and the government asked the private sector to look at it, we were sympathetic and the Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, Ms Meira Kumar, asked Mr N. R. Narayana Murthy: “What can you do to help out?”

Was this last year?

No, two years ago. So he came back and all of us discussed the issue and said, look, reservation is ultimately a political issue with political implications.

Our philosophy has been to hire on merit and give everybody an equal chance. But the fact remains that life is inherently unequal because of unequal access of education.

So we had a programme where we picked up 100 young engineers belonging to socially disadvantaged sections with 60 per cent marks and put them through a training programme in the best institution in India.

We gave them more time for the same training to make them employable. We said if this experiment works, it proves that the challenge is giving youngsters access to good education. So we went to the Karnataka Government, got a list of 400 such students, tied up with the Indian Institute of Information Technology in Bangalore and selected 100 people through a test. We funded Rs 1.3 crore to put them through a seven-month training programme.

Were they qualified engineers?

Yes, qualified engineers who had not got jobs in the last two years. Our normal training programme is for four months but we stretched it to seven months, and when the Director of IIIT, Prof S. Sadagopan, spoke to them, he found they had low self-esteem, were not articulate or used to an open culture. The course was designed by us, along with him, and about 60 per cent of the faculty too was from Infosys. Nine engineers dropped out of the course, 91 completed it and passed. We then called reputed companies — apart from Insosys — such as IBM, HP, Cognizant Technologies, Wipro, MindTree, and two public sector banks to recruit these engineers on the same terms that they would recruit anybody else. There was no dilution of quality or sympathy.

Were all of them from the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes category?

I don’t like using those terms; I prefer “socially disadvantaged” because they are all employed and should not feel they have not got the jobs on merit.

We’re not mentioning any names or departments. How many were women?

About 30 per cent.

And what would their starting salaries be like?

Like anybody else in IT… between Rs 2.75 -3 lakh.

Would even public sector banks pay that much?

They took only two or three…and must have paid about Rs 1.5-2 lakh. But 90 per cent were taken by IT companies. We saw their self-esteem and confidence improving dramatically and were very happy! In fact, eight of them had three offers and 15 two.

What next?

We’ll now work with four other institutions. With Symbiosis in Pune and the Maharashtra Government, we have embarked on another experiment that will start in September. They will pick up 100 young students and we will use the means test…

Economic criteria?

Yes, excluding the creamy layer. We didn’t do that in the first programme for the simple reason we wanted it to succeed. We’ll share the cost with the Maharashtra government. We’re trying to work with the Governments of Rajasthan, Orissa and, perhaps, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. The next experiment will have about 350-400 engineers in all these institutions and we are sure we’ll scale up. We are working with different institutions because we have to create institutional capacity so that they can run programmes with government support in the future and we will go for recruitment.

What about involving more corporates?

Many of them did come forward for recruitment; we are speaking to CII’s Committee on Empowerment. We have identified the challenge which is access to good education; if we create institutional capacity and give special courses, we can crack the problem in a systemic manner.

So, rather than get reservation thrust upon the private sector, this would be a better way to do it?

Sure and, more important, the people who get through will feel they got in through merit; that they fought and won. Dr Ambedkar went through very bad times but he was a double doctorate and nobody could point a finger at him. He could stand up and come out a winner… intellectually he fought against Gandhi, and on equal terms. Any system that makes you a recipient of gratis or some favours is not a good one. But a system that empowers you is more long lasting and sustainable .

Our industry is a transformational one because we have given hope to people from small cities and villages; they want to be software engineers, and farmers are borrowing money from banks to educate their children.

A friend of mine told me that his maid servant educated her son, who had got a job with the Infosys BPO. The mother is ecstatic and we are happy too.

Related Stories:
IT jobs will double to 3.2 m in four years, says Nilekani
Namaste, middle class

More Stories on : Software | Interview | Human Resources | Infosys Technologies Ltd

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page