Lack of entry-level talent worries IT companies like Infosys and Wipro

Indian companies are increasingly complaining about the lack of quality talent at the entry level and more so in the IT/ITeS (Information Technology / IT-enabled services) space which recruits fresh graduates in huge numbers. According to a research conducted by a consulting firm, the findings of which were exclusively shared with TOI, only students from tier 1 engineering colleges, like the IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology)and NITs (National Institutes of Technology), which constitute 4.5% of the overall engineering graduates, are fit to work in software products firms like Microsoft and Google given the kind of skills these companies need.

On the other hand, 45% of students from tier 1, 2 and 3 colleges are employable by IT/ITeS services companies like Infosys and Wipro, reflecting the hiring challenges these technology firms grapple with in a fastchanging industry. Overall in 2012, nearly 5.1 million students graduated in India, out of which 45.7% were from the arts stream, said Knowledgefaber, a Bangalore-based research and consulting firm.

Engineering and technology graduates made up 356,000 of the overall talent pool at the graduate level. However, Knowlegefaber’s research found that there are huge regional imbalances in the availability of engineering graduates. Four states (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra) together have more than 70% of these graduates. To add to this concern is the question raised on the quality of engineering schools in India and the quality of graduates coming out of these colleges, said the research.

“Customer needs are changing and technology developments are placing greater demand on the industry. Outstanding interface skills, deeper domain knowledge and awareness of the business context has become a ‘must have’ for today’s professionals. Not all colleges that churn out students have been able to build these skills into their curriculum, thereby necessitating companies to bridge the skill gaps and bring about standardization of capability, among students hired from different parts of the country,” said Hari T, chief people officer at IT services firm Mahindra Satyam.

This is the reason why companies will have to hunt for talent beyond the IITs and NITs. “Across industries, companies are looking to hire from tier 1 engineering colleges but the competition is very high and it represents less than 5% of the overall talent pool. We feel it is best recommended to look at talent in tier 2 and 3 cities,” said Amit Goel, CEO, Knowledgefaber.

Computer science and IT accounts for nearly 32.5% of the fresh engineering talent in India while electronics and mechanical stream comes in second and third with 21.8% and 17.7% of students opting for these streams, respectively.

Sangeeta Lala, Senior VP & Co-founder at TeamLease Services, said, “IT graduate freshers are not usually skilled with new technologies like cloud computing, making them a less preferred option for companies. These companies would then look to internal scaling or experienced candidates who are readily deployable with the knowledge of new technologies.” Many IT firms have set up huge training facilities to help these graduates scale up, which experts say is the way forward. Also, they have facilitated tailor-made courses to bring about the right talent on board.

“Through new hybrid models, corporates are sponsoring academic institutionspecific courses, selecting the students as per their needs, providing the content and course material related to their industries and business, which is actually increasing the possibilities of employment for students,” said Sunil Goel, MD, GlobalHunt India, a recruitment firm.

Source: The Economic Times, April 1, 2013

Business dull, 65 B-schools across India to shut down

On the academic floor, the MBA programme was once supreme. Arrogantly and unambiguously, it became the final sign-off to schooling, attracting not only those interested in business but also all those who wanted to master the tools of management.

That hubris, thanks to its own profligacy, is now being shaken. The Indian management education sector grew so wildly when demand was rampant (today there are 3,900 management schools with close to 350,000 seats) that supply overshot demand by a long shot. And now comes the fallout.

In a dramatic, though not entirely unexpected, development, as many as 65 business management colleges across India are planning to close down; these institutes no longer see business sense in offering an MBA course, preferring to use the land for more lucrative ventures. Experts predict that many more management colleges will close down in the days to come. As S S Mantha, Chairman of the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), puts it, “Colleges in remote India and institutes of poor quality are not getting students.”

Bust after Boom
There are 3,900 management schools in India with close to 350,000 seats, indicating supply overshot demand Experts question quality of many colleges in remote areas. With no job offers, students shun them, prompting many to contemplate closure. Curriculum is far from reality. For the students who choose not to apply to any of these lesser-known colleges, the decision is a no-brainer: the curriculum is far from business reality, faculty is minimal and, most importantly, very few respectable companies participate in the course-end recruitment drives. At one time, the archetypal Indian MBA did join anonymous business colleges. But now with no job offer at the end, the decision is no longer complicated: a young graduate would rather take up a job or prepare harder for another shot at an entrance exam which is the gate to a better B-school, says Stephen D’silva, Director, Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies.

However, while the lower-rung management schools are being bypassed, there are still tens of thousands who make a beeline to join an IIM (Indian Institute of Management). Pankaj Chandra, Director of IIM-Bangalore, boasts of the hundreds of thousands of students who sign up to take the Common Admission Test (CAT) for close to 3,000 seats that the IIMs have on offer. “It is a great time to do an MBA. The brightest ones still want to do an MBA,” he adds.

Having said that, the manner in which India’s business education sector has developed poses a vital question: Is the MBA for everyone? Across the country, academics, irrespective of the institute they are affiliated to, are relating to Henry Mintzberg of McGill University, Montreal, who devoted a book to his contention that “conventional MBA programs train the wrong people in the wrong ways with the wrong consequences”. Mintzberg’s line ‘Warning: Not Prepared to Manage’ has become a popular catch phrase in internal meetings that B-school boards and faculty members hold.

Source: The Economic Times (Online Edition), February 19, 2012

India fares poorly in global learning study

A global study of learning standards in 74 countries has ranked India all but at the bottom, sounding a wake-up call for the country’s education system. China came out on top. It was the first time that India participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), coordinated by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). India’s participation was in a pilot project, confined to schools from Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh.

The findings are significant because they come at a time when India is making a big push in education and improving the skills of its workforce. If the results from the two states hold good for the rest of the country, India’s long-term competitiveness may be in question.

Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh traditionally rank high on human development parameters and are considered to be among India’s more progressive states. The India Human Development Report 2011, prepared by the Institute of Applied Manpower Research (IAMR), categorized them as “median” states, putting them significantly ahead of the national average. IAMR is an autonomous arm of the Planning Commission.

For literacy, Himachal Pradesh ranked 4 and Tamil Nadu 11 in the National Family Health Survey released in 2007. Yet, in the PISA study, Tamil Nadu ranked 72 and Himachal Pradesh 73, just ahead of Kyrgyzstan in mathematics and overall reading skills. The eastern Chinese metropolis of Shanghai topped the PISA rankings in all three categories — overall reading skills, mathematical and scientific literacy.

PISA is an international study that began in 2000. It aims to assess education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students in participating economies. To be sure, there are some reservations about the findings of the study. Such comparisons may not be fair as they are not between equals, says Manish Sabharwal, chief executive officer of human resources training and placement firm Teamlease Services Pvt. Ltd. Yet, he argued, it does serve as a timely warning. “Industries are already facing a problem because of poor quality (of graduates),” Sabharwal said. “What we need to do is repair and prepare. Repair by imparting skill training and prepare by improving the school system, which is the main gateway.”

In Tamil Nadu, only 17% of students were estimated to possess proficiency in reading that is at or above the baseline needed to be effective and productive in life. In Himachal Pradesh, this level is 11%. “This compares to 81% of students performing at or above the baseline level in reading in the OECD countries, on an average,” said the study. In other words, only a little over one in six students in Tamil Nadu and nearly one in 10 students in Himachal Pradesh are performing at the OECD average. A similar trend was observed in mathematical and scientific literacy, too.

Anurag Behar, chief executive officer of the Azim Premji Foundation, said the study’s findings were alarming.
This is because the PISA study found that only 12% of students in Himachal Pradesh and 15% in Tamil Nadu were proficient in mathematics against an OECD average of 75%; when it came to scientific literacy among students of class X, the proficiency level in Tamil Nadu was 16% and in Himachal, 11%, as against an OECD average proficiency of 82%. In Malaysia, 56% of students were proficient in reading and 41% in mathematics. Similarly, in the United Arab Emirates, the mathematics proficiency levels was estimated at 49% and for reading, 60%. Like India, both countries participated for the first time.

Behar says there is a need for a complete change of India’s teacher education system and a shift from rote learning-driven school education to understanding-driven curricula. “We also need to reduce the policy-implemenation gap,” he said.

Tamil Nadu education minster C.V.Shanmugam declined to comment on the study’s findings, asserting that the state’s education system is good. “In the last five years, 56,000 teachers were recruited… In which state do they give students laptops?” he said, referring to chief minister J. Jayalalithaa’s free laptop scheme for students that was part of her campaign for elections that brought her All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam​ party back to power in May. “We give incentives for students attending higher secondary. We give Rs. 1,500 (a year) to class X students, Rs. 1,500 to class XI and Rs. 2,000 to class XII. We give Rs. 5,000 if they clear class XII. So steps are being taken to improve the existing system,” he claimed.

Himachal Pradesh education minister Ishwar Dass Dhiman defended his state’s education system. In elementary schools, the enrolment has reached 99.3%, for instance, he said. “If they have taken samples from the interior areas of our state, then we cannot say anything. We are now hiring better qualified teachers to improve the teaching of students.”

Pramath Sinha, an education entrepreneur and former dean of the Indian School of Business​, Hyderabad, said he knew about the deficiencies of India’s education system but was still shocked to find India so low in the PISA rankings. “I belive our lack of urgency will take away the demographic dividend that we could have reaped,” Sinha said.

Not everyone agrees. The study may not be based on an apple-to-apple comparison, says Vipul Prakash, managing director of Elixir Consulting, a recruitment process outsourcing firm. “If you look at the entire people entering the workforce, you may find lack of quality. But if you take the top 10% then they are perhaps the best in the world. This 10% is quite a large number which is giving India a competitive upper hand.”

Source: Mint, December 20, 2011

Criticized for falling standards, IITs tweak JEE format

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have tweaked the format of next year’s joint entrance examination (JEE) after being criticized for falling standards by Infosys Ltd. Chairman Emeritus N.R. Narayana Murthy.

Aspirants for a place in India’s elite engineering schools will now have to score minimum marks in each of three subjects they are tested in — physics, chemistry and mathematics — as well as a minimum aggregate to be considered for admission, the institutes said in a statement on Wednesday.

The IIT-JEE is one of the most competitive examinations in the country, with just two of every 100 candidates qualifying for admission to the 15 IITs. But Murthy, an IIT alumnus himself, said on 3 October that IIT graduates fare poorly in jobs and overseas colleges. He blamed the entrance process and admission coaching centres, which he said prepare candidates through rote learning, for the drop in standards.

Currently, students are ranked on a merit list based on overall marks. Coaching centres often encourage students to focus on any two subjects of their choice, as even students who are weak in one subject can make the grade. But such students come under pressure once they get admitted, as well as later in their careers. “Obtaining a rank in IIT-JEE 2012 does not guarantee admission to any of the courses available in IITs, IT-BHU and ISM, Dhanbad,” said IIT Delhi, which is organizing next year’s examination. Besides the 15 IITs, the Information Technology Department of Banaras Hindu University (IT-BHU) and Indian School of Mines (ISM), Dhanbad also select students from JEE.

Under the new format, candidates must score at least 10% in each subject and 35% overall to be considered for the merit list. Separate rank lists will be prepared for students from other backward classes (OBCs), scheduled castes and scheduled tribes as well as for disabled students — but on the same principle. For example, an OBC student must score at least 9% in each subject and 31.5% aggregate to be on the OBC rank list.

“For the first time, we are making the cut-off list public even before the entrance. The predefined cut-off will be made public through the admission brochures,” said S.K. Chowdhury, chairman of the JEE committee at IIT-Kanpur. The move will give equal weight to every subject, said a professor at IIT-Delhi. “We have seen visible disparity in the scoring pattern of many students. The effect of coaching centres can be reduced now,” the professor added, requesting anonymity.

Some 485,000 students took the JEE in the last academic year, vying for around 10,000 seats. The next examination will be conducted on 8 April, 2012.

The change may also help ensure no seats are left vacant, especially in the reserved categories. “Around 300 seats go vacant every year and we hope this change will also fill up these seats,” said Chowdhury of IIT-Kanpur. Gaurav Mittal, who runs DMC Tutorials and Quest coaching centres, said the change in JEE format won’t have much bearing on the way they approach preparing students. “They are attacking the false perception that coaching is a must for entering IIT,” he added.

Source: Mint, October 20, 2011