Why Tamil Nadu has 45,000 engineering seats empty

The existence of a large number of engineering colleges is one of the major reasons why the IT industry chooses Tamil Nadu as a preferred destination. The colleges churn out the required manpower in hordes, which the industry laps up for its own growth and expansion. But this year, engineering institutions have faced a major shock. A whopping 45,000 seats out of the 149,000 available seats have fallen vacant in the 2011 admissions to the 577 engineering colleges in the state.

To explain this situation, Anna University Vice-Chancellor P. Mannar Jawahar cites the increasing trend of IT companies going to arts and science colleges for campus hiring. At the same time, education activists are demanding an embargo on the setting up of new engineering colleges by AICTE and the implementation of measures to regulate college fees, plus improve infrastructure, quality and manpower in the engineering education sector.

“IT companies have tasted success by hiring brilliant BSc and MSc IT, maths, physics and chemistry graduates delivering goods at par with BE. A typical BE fresher expects a salary of Rs. 25,000 against the more modest expectations of BSc and MSc pass-outs who settle for a salary of Rs. 15,000,” says Jawahar. Anna is the nodal university of the Tamil Nadu government that conducts entrance exams for the 577 affiliate colleges coming under its umbrella.

Till last year, engineering education was considered to be the only passport to land jobs in IT. Despite the cost of technical education, the salary levels made many middle class and lower middle families educate their children in engineering colleges that got them a high-paying IT job.

“IT industry looks at engineers for their math proficiency, a much-needed skill in analysing problems and conceiving algorithms to solve various IT automation projects. By virtue of their discipline, engineers are sought after for technical grasping ability which cannot be expected of arts and science graduates,” says R Chandrasekaran, president and managing director of Cognizant Technology.

But Deepali Singh, business head of firstnaukri.com (a subsidiary of the job portal naukri.com) says that margin pressures due to a global slowdown have made IT companies look at cost-cutting even for talent, by substituting engineering candidates with MSc and BSc. “There are many companies that are running pilot tests on giving functional roles to BSc and MSc pass-outs. The industry continues to hire 95% engineers but is gradually re-assigning the various support roles to non-engineering workers.”

The intake of non-engineering candidates would impact the hiring prospects of engineering stream students only marginally, opines E Balaji, CEO of Mafoi Consultant. “An engineer would be reluctant to work on many of the job functionalities which an ordinary graduate could unabashedly perform. Scheduling a client call, monitoring the project progress, arranging intra-level team communication are some of the mundane tasks that a trained graduate with limited exposure to IT could handle.” Basic software testing is one domain where IT companies could manage the show with non-engineers.

Source: The Financial Express, September 2, 2011

B-schools add campuses to broaden presence

Some Indian business schools are setting up new campuses across the country in an attempt to meet demand for MBAs, executive education programmes and consulting services, and, through these, increase revenue and brand presence and prepare for competition from foreign schools that could soon enter the country.

Among the schools doing these are Chennai-based Great Lakes Institute of Management, XLRI in Jamshedpur, Management Development Institute (MDI) in Gurgaon, International Management Institute (IMI) in New Delhi, and Birla Institute of Management Technology (Bimtech) in Greater Noida.

The schools are convinced there is demand. “Though over 200,000 appear for CAT (the Common Admission Test for entry to the prestigious Indian Institutes of Management, or IIMs) to get a seat in IIMs, less than 3,000 get through. The top 20% of students in the CAT exam deserve better quality education,” said Bala V. Balachandran, Dean of Great Lakes, and one of the founders of the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad.

And, not surprisingly, Gurgaon, the satellite town of Delhi that has seen frenetic industrial and corporate activity over the past decade, tops everyone’s list of preferred destinations. “The National Capital Region (NCR) is a hub of corporate and we’ll be well positioned…to become a resource centre for them, providing consulting, research, customized education to meet their needs and challenges,” added Balachandran.

Another dean echoed that sentiment. “The NCR is a fantastic option as it has connectivity with major countries. In Gurgaon, we would love to have a campus in collaboration with some foreign university,” said Pranabesh Ray, Dean of XLRI. Indeed, Gurgaon would appear to have replaced Hyderabad as the school’s choice, although Ray added that while the Hyderabad plan is not being abandoned, the current political turmoil in Andhra Pradesh could mean a delay.

With a school typically requiring an investment of Rs. 100 crore (Rs. 1 billion), the expansion plans won’t come cheap (Great Lakes’ plans in Bhubaneswar could cost thrice that), but the schools are convinced it will be worth it. Interestingly, many schools are also looking at setting up campuses in places that currently don’t have too many of them, such as Orissa.

“We want to expand in Greater Noida, but land availability is a major issue. The Orissa government has helped us get some 40 acres of land at non-commercial rates and we are opening our campus (there) this year,” said Bimtech director H. Chaturvedi. “If Posco and Vedanta can go to Orissa, why can’t leading B-schools go to the state. The industrialization of the state will also help.”

That’s a view shared by Pritam Singh​, Director General of IMI (its Bhubaneswar campus, which cost Rs. 44 crore or Rs. 440 million, opens this year). In five years, he said, the state “will be fully industrialized”. And placement won’t be a problem, he added.

“Industries such as metals, mining and IT are growing fast. Though India has nearly 4,000 management schools, less than 40 are high-quality institutes. Instead of allowing more schools, the good schools should expand to fulfil the need of quality education,” Singh said.

Source: Mint, September 2, 2011

150 AYUSH colleges barred from admitting new students

The government has barred more than 150 colleges offering alternative and traditional medicine courses from admitting any student in the next academic session after these colleges were found violating regulatory norms.

Spread across the country, these colleges were together taking in nearly 10,000 students every year. The alternative and traditional medicines refer to practice of ayurveda, yoga & naturopathy, unani, siddha and homoeopathy, or AYUSH.

“Most of the colleges providing these courses did not have the mandatory hospital and adequate faculty, among other basic infrastructure,” said an official with the department of AYUSH. There are about 310 AYUSH colleges in the country, with each admitting 50 students a year.

According to the department’s website, as on August 30, it has not permitted new admission to 112 colleges. Most of these educational institutes, private- and government-owned, offer under graduate and post-graduate courses in ayurveda and unani.

The department, however, has allowed these colleges to continue teaching the existing students. About 108 other colleges have been permitted to admit students for the next academic session, but only if they address their deficiencies within two months.

A senior industry executive said the government is partly to be blamed for the violation of norms by these institutes as it never dealt with them sternly before. Government officials say the industry was earlier regulated by a council that was not very effective. The department got the authority only in 2003 after an amendment in the Indian Medicine Council Act 1973.

During a separate inspection, the department has also found about half of the country’s 9,000 AYUSH manufacturing units violating the norms. They said action will be initiated against them soon. The AYUSH industry is estimated to be worth between Rs. 8,000 crore (Rs. 80 billion) and Rs. 10,000 crore (Rs. 100 billion) and is growing at about 15%.

Ranjit Puranik, CEO of Mumbai-based Shree Dhootapapeshwar Ltd., a manufacturer of ayurvedic products, said several obscure colleges and firms were allowed to flourish without the basic mandatory infrastructure.

Source: The Economic Times, September 2, 2011