The Hindu Business Line : Will it get better... or worse?

Whether industry leaders in India — particularly those from the IT sector — or people outside India, the burden of the song is the same... that as the Indian economy powers ahead and the services sector explodes, India is going to need increasing numbers of skilled workers. But the quality of technical graduates churned out by our educational institutions — barring the IITs, IIMs and similar top pedigree organisations — is abysmal.

Kiran Karnik, President of NASSCOM, in a recent interaction with journalists from The Hindu group of newspapers, was alarmed at the declining quality in engineering graduates. MasterCard International Economic Advisor Dr Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, at a recent conference in Singapore, was bullish on India's economic growth, but said that while over 2 lakh engineers passed out every year in India, hardly "20 to 25 per cent are good" and this could be reflected in the "huge amount of job hopping in the services sector; this will slow down this sector's growth."

There is a general consensus in the IT industry that standards are falling and unless drastic action is taken to improve, increase and motivate faculty, we will face a huge problem in the coming years. However, IT majors such as Infosys Technologies and Cognizant Technology Services have not yet faced a problem in getting talented freshers.

In the short term, there would be talent at the entry level. But in the long run there would be HR challenges across industries. - LAKSHMI NARAYANAN

Lakshmi Narayanan, President and CEO, Cognizant Technology Solutions, says till now his experience is "good as we limit ourselves to premier institutions across India." This is thanks to its brand equity in premier campuses and a good relationship thanks to its "campus ambassadorial programme, non-hierarchical work environment, open culture, industry-leading growth, and challenging assignments."

In calendar 2005, Cognizant added about 9,000 professionals, and this year it would take in about 10,700 professionals globally. Of these, 65-70 per cent are freshers from premier campuses, and the ratio is likely to remain the same going forward, he says, adding, "In the short to medium term, we believe that there would be reasonably good talent at the entry level. But in the long run there would be human resource challenges across industries."

Mohandas Pai, HR chief of Infosys, says his experience in recruiting freshers has been positive too; 65 per cent marks from the engineering course are required to take the Infosys recruitment test. "Since the numbers have become larger we are casting the net wider." But when it comes to bright youngsters from smaller towns, "we find they are not articulate and do not have a broader reading or perspective and need special training to come up to speed. They are enthusiastic and hardworking; the key is a larger training effort."

Interestingly, his experience is that freshers from colleges are better than those from the market!

Huge demand

Focussing unrelentingly on English, which is our vaunted strength, would help keep our technical education competitive. - G. B. Prabhat

While declining to comment on the manpower Infosys will need in the next 3-5 years, he says industry estimates are that the entire IT industry would require about 4 lakh engineers and 6 lakh graduates over the next three years. "Obviously, this is a stretch. For the industry the average quality is lower than in the past because the net is cast wider and the quality of the education experience has been poorer," says Pai.

G.B. Prabhat, Director, Consulting and Enterprise Solutions, Satyam Computer Services, (who spoke in his personal capacity), believes that the quality of technical education, compared with the past, has not deteriorated. "But, we have to beware when we start dramatically increasing the number of technical graduates."

He is hopeful that with the current participation of the industry in academe, and with the tight integration of India with the global technical world, we should be able to preserve or even improve the overall quality of technical education.

He raises another concern when he says, "What is deplorable is that technical education gets deeper and deeper, leaving current graduates with no sense of breadth that the previous generation had."

Also, adds Prabhat, compared with the past, the spoken and written communication skills of the current generation are inadequate by a considerable margin. "The growing popularity of SMS and other teenybopper pidgin, if unchecked by counter moves by academic institutions, can soon render us incapable of formal communication."

On the academic side of this debate, Prof P.V. Indiresan, former Director of IIT, Madras, says there are three elements in the making of a good education — competent students, capable faculty and good infrastructure; "and in that order. If the students are good, they can make up for institutional deficiencies including bad teaching. Good students stimulate one another and set up competition among themselves. Unfortunately, most engineering colleges are scraping the bottom of the barrel to get students. It is much more difficult to get into an Economics course, even a History Honours course in St Stephens (Delhi), than to get admission to most engineering colleges." High schools, he says, do not produce enough students of high calibre.

As for faculty, "good teachers are not made in a day. Although I am no expert on the subject, they are like wine — the more mature the better. In the past 6-7 years, engineering colleges have greedily trebled, quadrupled their intake. There are no teachers. As second rate teachers can offer only third rate education, the situation is sad."

Cognizant's Narayanan agrees that the percentage of employable engineers straight out of college is clearly decreasing, even though top-notch institutions such as the IITs and NITs continue to deliver on the brand promise.

"In the last 10 years or so, several hundred new engineering colleges have sprung up that have difficulty in attracting top notch faculty, retaining them, and enhancing their skills. Many of them therefore do not have the ability to attract the best students. ," he says.

Future requirements

Underlining the crucial need for quality faculty, he says institutions with great buildings, libraries and infrastructure will fail to deliver without good faculty. "Look at the magnitude of the problem. If we have to create an additional two million graduates, we require 50,000 teachers, assuming a high student-teacher ratio of 40:1. Can we attract that many educated graduates and post-graduates to teach in colleges? Yes, if we pay them well, and train them well to facilitate learning."

For the industry the average quality is lower than in the past because the net is cast wider and the quality of the education experience has been poorer. - MOHANDAS PAI

Infosys' Pai thinks under-investment from the State in the higher education system in India and an inadequate number of faculty in colleges, are responsible.

"The major challenge is that when the need has arisen, the education system is not coming up to speed in the manner required."

Let us turn to the future requirements for trained manpower in India. Narayanan says that if the current economic growth rate continues, "we would be a trillion-dollar economy in the next 10 years. A high level of growth on a sustained basis is achievable as China has demonstrated, and going by the confidence exuded by Indian industry. Do we have the human resources to fill the millions of jobs that our growing economy will create? The answer is clearly no."

Also, these jobs will not be confined to technology; the construction industry needs thousands of engineers, and the power, retail and other sectors would also compete for quality graduates available in the pool.

Increasing seats

The views of the academician and industry representatives differ on the issue of increasing capacity. Says Prof Indiresan, "Many private colleges have fairly good infrastructure but government engineering colleges are in terrible shape. But this is the least of our problems. Once Arjun Singh gets his way, the situation will become worse. The few good students will prefer to migrate than face the uncertainties of career at home."

Narayanan feels there is no getting away from increasing capacity, while increasing and improving faculty. Living in an extremely competitive world, "absence of right quality at the right time is a missed opportunity and there are dozens of other countries that are waiting to grab the opportunity. Therefore, we need to address this challenge to stay globally competitive. The solution lies in developing faculty in large numbers and creating capacity to produce more and more engineers, professionals, graduates, technicians, and so on."

He says the Tamil Nadu experience of setting up newer colleges over the last 10 years is today replicated by other states. "The capacity that has been created by the academia in Tamil Nadu is what is attracting growth. But, it has to increase manifold, and in a relatively shorter time span. George Bush announced a programme called "Leave no child out of school"; we need a programme that says: "Leave no twelfth grader out of college". And we don't have to compromise on quality; the brighter ones will probably take up high-end professional courses, research and so on, while others can pursue science and arts education, diplomas, etc."

Solution

Pai says the remedy is private participation in higher education in a much bigger though transparent manner, without undue restrictions. "Fees will rise and the State has to launch a national scholarship programme so that the bright and deserving, but without the means, are not deprived of higher education."

He thinks our policies on higher education are restrictive, with the State playing a domineering role and "stifling good initiatives. Because of the power of the state, the political class controls large areas of higher education as they control the sugar industry. We need a new set of policies to liberate the higher education area to promote quality and scale."

Demanding more autonomy and larger investment for universities, Pai says we need to pay our faculty much more, and "give them a higher place in society. Also, the quality of research is non-existent or poor in colleges. We've divorced research from education by centralising it in certain institutions and this is the price we have had to pay. World over high quality research is done in educational institutions and this is what attracts good faculty."

Prof Indiresan, on the other hand, blames industry for the malaise; "industrialists take great pains to source their raw material but take next to no interest in organising the human variety. Unlike in the US, they take no interest in educational institutions. As matters stand, I am pessimistic; the situation is likely to get worse than better."

But Narayanan strikes a note of optimism, when he says the IT industry is in a fortunate position today, because it is seen as an attractive and a long-term, growth-oriented industry, and young Indians want to be part of this success. He sees answers to this challenge in the Y2K boom of yore when demand took entrepreneurial activity to new levels.

"NIIT, Aptech and SSI type of finishing schools that came up in every street corner generated so many trained computer literates. It is estimated that during 1997 - 1999, almost quarter of a million computer literates were created. Now, there is renewed need for `finishing schools' that have to re-invent themselves to fit the newer context and make these graduates industry ready. I am confident that it will happen with increased vigour and raise entrepreneurship to a newer level."

Well, as Prabhat puts it, when that happens, "education should also include a smattering of literature, philosophy, history and economics and foreign language courses, so vital for global integration. Also, focussing unrelentingly on English, which is our vaunted strength, would help keep our technical education competitive."

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in