Technical Education and Development

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2. Technical Ed.ucatian and Development
to contribute, as part of the work force, to a prosperous
economy.India's demographic advantage is likely to last until
at least 2050, Provision for post-secondary education, and in
particular higher (technical) education, is widely seen in India
to be the ke11 to creating prosperity out of this demographic
advantage.
Technical (engineering) education sector in India has
expanded af a phenomenal rate since 1990s. The number of
AlCTE-apprgved engineering colleges which was 309 in 1990
increased mqre than ten-fold in two and half decade to 3389
in 2015. The pumber of private engineering colleges in India
which was girly 15 in 1980 increased to about 3000 in 2015.
This rather unusual growth in technical education, primarily
due to priva[e participation, which has also been termed as
'marketisation' or'privatisation', raises several questions about
its propriety.
In view of the NASSCOM report that 75 percent of
engineering graduates from these institutes are 'unemployable'
and 'man5r do-called 'degrees' just do not have the right
fundamental education behind them', a legitimate question
about the quality of such technical education arises. Technical
educationbeing primarily a job-oriented education, its quality
is reflected in the employability of those who have pursued
such course; As technical education endows students with
necessary skills required for employment, if its quality falters,
employability of students suffer. The reason why three-fourth
of engineering graduates in India are found to be
unemployable lies in the poor quality of technical graduates,
bereft of necessary technical skills, chumed out by the low-
quality technical institutions. We shall discuss both the quality
and the employability issues in detail in the next sections.
Quality Issugs of Technical Education
It is not quite easy to define quality in higher (technical)
education. Quality as definedby the British Standard Institute
(1991) is "the totality of features and characteristics of a product
or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied
61
5
Technical Education and DeveloPment :
Quality and Employability Issues
Subir Maitra
Introduction
Technical education is a powerful tool foi national
development. A better 'technically educated'labour force is
essential if we are to meet the human capital requirements of
faster growth.l Schultz (1961) inspired us to think that human
beings could also be considered as capital goods. Like any
other wealth, human capital can be augmented by investment.
Romer (1990) sees an explicit link between human capital and
growth. FIe asserts that the growth rate is increasing in the
stock of human capital. If the stock of human capital is too
low; growth may not take place at all.
It is imperative for India, with the second largest
population in the world, to focus on education to urtleash the
?uil potential of its human capital' India is currently
experiencing a'demographic adoantage', whereby half of its
population is aged 25 or younger;by 2020, the average age
will be 29 and India will be the world's youngest country,
witt. 64% of its population being of working age. This large
proportion of Indians can therefore expect, and be expected
1. Goel Vijay P. Technical and Vocational Education and Trainlng (TVET)
System in India for Sustainable Developrnent.http://
w7u7o.unel)oc.unesco.org/up findia -Countty -P
aper.pdf, dccessed on
23.08.2015.

3. 62 Sustainable D ev elopment through Educati.on
needs". As per ISO 9000:2000, the quality of a product i.s 'tfre
degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfils the
requirements, needs or expectations those are stated, Senerally
imprca or obtigatory'. Campbelt and Rozsnayi (20A2,,pp'19-
20i have defined ttre concept of quality of higher education
in terms of (i) excellence, (ii) zero errors, (iii) fitness for
purposes, (iv) transformation, (v) threshold, (vi) value for
money etc.
However, these definitions of quality are apprbptiate for
industry, not so much for higher (technical) education' Thus,
quality concepts adapted from business and industry
operations need to be reoriented, and reinstalled for higher
education conditions to turn the focus from the management-
based to the education-based practices. (Mizikaci,2006, pp'
37-53).
Nevertheless, the quality dimension, which is taken into
consideration in higher (technical) education, is the service
quality. In fact, in the context of higher (technical) educatiory
we must keep in mind that students are both 'inputs' and
'outputs' of this system, and the quality of services, which
higher (technical) institutes provide, to get properly reflected
inlhe 'out1>ut', 'input' (student) should have required ability
and commitment. Various entrance examinations seek to
measure such abilities of prospective students, while
commitment of the students is reflected in their attentiveness
and performance in the class as well as in their having interest
in the subject taught.
Chua (2004, p.183) explained that higher bducation
stakeholders understand the concept of quality in d
ways:
Parents: Parents look at quality as relating to inpu
(university ranking, performance, infrastructure, etc.) as
as output (employability, graduate placement, etc.).
Students: Students perceive quality as relating to
educational process and how they will fit in (teaching
learning, courses, etc.) as well as outputs (learrring
employability).
Technical Edwcation and Dev elopment
Facultyi Faculty recognize quality as relating to the whole
system of education and its improvements (input, process and
output).
Employers: Employers perceive quality in terms of the
output, i.e,, the ability to perform in the work place as shown
through graduate attributes and competencies.
Actually, the quality in higher (technical) education is
neither easy to understand nor easy to assess because of its
very basic c.haracteristics. Higher (technical) education services
are activities performed by the provider (institution). Unlike
physical products, they cannot be seery tasted, fe1t, heard or
smelt befqre they are consumed. Since, services are not
tangibles, fhey do not have features that appeal to the
customers' senses, their evaluation, unlike goods, is not really
possible before actual purchase and consumption. Higher
(technical) education being an 'experience service', its
purchaser$ (students or parents) cannot have information
similar to 'product specification' that the buyers of a product
generally go through in alternative evaluation prior to
purchase,'Fven if some specific information relating to
technical education institute is obtained, there is no guarantee
that such information is correct always. It is not possible on
the part of buyer (student or parent) to verify each and every
claim of the institute. Even when such information appears to
be true, thqre is always a chance of some 'hidden action' on
the part of.service provider (institution). Therefore, actual
quality of technical education services is not precisely known
to the customer before they buy them.
Higher (technical) education services are typically
produced and consumed simultaneously. Unlike physical
goods, whieh are produced at the manufacturing units, then
elistributed through multiple resellers, sold to the buyers, and
consumed later, higher (technical) education services cannot
be separated from the service provider. Thus, the service
provider (institution) would become a part of a service. The
cducational services cannotbe produced now for consumption
irt a later stage or time, i.e., educational services cannot be
63

4. 6564 Sustuinable Development through Ed.ucation Technicul Education and D ev elopment
stored. Again, the physical presence of student is essential at
the place where educational services are being delivered.
Inseparabitity of production and consumption makes the
concept of quality in services quite complicated. Here, the
commitment and sincerity of the professor, institute's
commitment towards promotion of quality, availability of
essential teaching tools and technical equipments (as is
important for technical education), peer Pressure ainong the
teachers etc. all are quite important' Similarly, the duality of
the students, their basic command over three basic subjects
namely, physics, mathematics and chemistry, their comfnitment
towards learning the subject and their interest in the subject
etc. also matter in imparting quality technical educdtion.
Ttre Employability Issue of Technical Education in India
For decades, lack of employment opportunities and
underemployment of educated masses have been important
issues in Indian labour market. Interestingly; during
contemporary times the tide is reversed and industry is
finding'employable work force'2. As we know, the
for labour is derived demand. The demand for labour
on the conditions in the product market, productio-n sys
work organization, technology and so on. Employability i
this context will be preparedness of workei to t
organizational changes. Lrcreasing use of computers to
information within firms and rising versatility an
programmability of equipment have increased t
New technologies of production have greatly increased
the speed of operations, accuracy, reliability, quallty of the
product, customization and product flexibility. All these add
to productivity, efficiency and profitability. Thus, industries
now iook for persons who could handle or acquire these new
technologies. Thus, in the changed situations employment
security is a function of the employability or preparedness to
adapt through learning. Another important issue coevolving
with this phenomenon is the exposure of labour market to
changes in global business. For instance, the demand for
skilled lalpour has been associated with the tendency of
outsourcing of IT related jobs to great extent (Chithelen, 2004).
Ideally, there should have been increased integration
between institutions involved in supply of labour, including
trainingle.ducation systems, labour legislation, and demand
side of lahour, 1.e., business sector. It seems, globally, there is
a mismatchbetweensupply of employabte labour and demand
for if. Fui'ther, corollary to this demand-supply mismatch,
the gap between learning through educational system and
employerq' expectation from employees widened.
Generally, three types of qualities are considered as
important while assessing the employability performance of a
job seeker. These are:
(1) Key technical and academic skills specific to the iob: Before
hiring a person, an employer tries to test these skills, and to a
gre4textent academic curriculumprepares the students to gain
them, These skills include reading, language, and numeric
capacity, listening, written communication, oral presentation,
global awareness, critical analysis, creativity and self-
management.
(2) Process skills: Unlike the key technical skills, which are
demonstrated at the time of interview or intake into the
employment, process skills need to be demonstrated on the
wor(. Many of these skills are incident-dependent at the work
place and, therefore, are difficult to measure. These process
complementarities across task (e.g., productiory markel
customer service, product design) that a given employee
exploit. Furthermore, the growing amounts of overa
knowledge that has been disseminated through educatic
system over the past few decades have made young
increasingly capable of performing multiple tasks
and Snower, 1996: 315-16).
2. Datta R. C., Sony Pellissery and Bino Paul G. D.(2007),AT
D is cussion P ap er 2 /2007, TISS 3. McKinsey Quarterly (2005).

5. 66 Sustainable D ev elapment through Education
skills include problem solving capacity, decision inaking,
planning and delegating, ethical sensitivity, understanding
business and its commercial interests, ability to work with
persons from different regional, cultural and, religion
backgrounds, prioritizing, team work, and negotitti.g..
(3) Personal qualities: Thepersonal qualities of the job seeker are
also valued in addition to the ability to carry out the task. An
employer looks for the qualities like self-confidence, self-contol,
self- esteem, social skills, honesty, integrity, adaptability,
flexibility, wilIingness to learn, emotional intelligenie, stress
tolerance, punctuality, efficiency and reflectiveness. These
qualities are verymuch embedded with the personality type
and shaped through life-experiences.
The first type of qualities is known as core skills wfrile the
latter two categories are called soft skills. Soft skills #e learned
from experiences and, therefore/ are more important than the
worker's core (technical) skills. Thus, an employer with
employability focus looks for an individual with potgntials to
be iealized (Martin, 1997), rather than with suitable skill sets.
However, from the perspective of the employability concept,
there is little meaning in separating out these three sets
indicators. Rather, the synergy produced in a worker through
different combinations of these indicators is the crux
employability.
Bangalore-based MeriTrac Services Pvt Ltd. (MSPL) has
been roped in as assessment partner for B-SAT (BPO Skills
Assessment Test) in Karnataka, by the Government of Andhra
Pradesh for Graduate Employment Test (GET) and by the
Government of Kerala for Kerala Employability Enhancement
Resources Programme. Tata Consultancy Servicbs (TCS),
Wipro, Infosys Technologies Ltd., IBM, Mind Tree, Robert
Bosch and Caritor have promoted the University Level
Assessment Test (ULSAT) project conceived by Visvesvaraya
Technological University (VTU) of Bangalore in Karnataka.
These assessments revealed that only 25"/" of engineeri
graduates possessed employable skills.
A global survey with human resource experts fotttrd th
Technical Education and Development 67
on an av-elagj only 13/" of fresh professional graduates were
employable. Finance and accounting graduateJaia better with
19% of them found to be employabl-Jand the rest - e.gir,eers
(17"/"),life science researiher (L4./"), analyst (15.2) and
qelglalists (10%) - were about the tevet of tndiu., prtf"rrior,ui,
(McKinsey Quarterly, 2005). "
The National Association of Software and Services
Co_rypanies (NASSCOM) and McKinsey in their report
published in 2005 mentioned that only 2s,/"-ofthe engineering
education graduates in India are emptoyable by a mulEnationil
comPanyl
^ An Employer Satisfaction Survey was carried out from
septemb'er to November 2009 ur pu"t of preparation of ttre
Second Phase of Technical Educafion quitity Improvement
Prograr4 (TEQIP-D initiated by the Govemment of India and
financially supported by the World Bank. The survey was
implemented by a joint team of the National project
Implementation Unit (NpIU), the Federation of Indian
Chamhers of Commerce and Industry (FICCD, and the World
Bank in:consultation with Ministry of Human Resource
Development (MHRD), Government of India.
., Specifically, the survey sought answers of the following
three qugstions:
(i) whlch skills do employers consider important when hiring
new engineering graduates?
(ii) How satisfied are employers with the skills of engineering
graduates?
(iii) In wtri"n important skills are the engineers falling short?
Analysis of the employers' feedback showed:
(i)
fhg.spe^crfic
skills cal b-e grouped into three overall groups of
skills: Core Employability Skills, Communication Stills,'and
.'
Profpssional Skills.
(ii) Altf-rough-all three skills are important for employers, Core
Emp,loyability skills and Communication skiils (ioft"skiris) are
more important than professional Skilts. Soft skills, such as
reli4bility and self-motivation have the largest skills gaps.

6. 68 Sustainable D ev elopment thro ugh Educ cttion
(iii)
(iv)
64'h of employers hiring fresh engineering graduates are only
somewhaf satisfied or worse with the quality of engineering
graduates' skills. The typical employer is oniy "somerlthat
iatisfied" with the skill set of the newly hired graduates'
The graduates have strong English Communication skills and
this ii one the most important skills for employability'
(v) The graduates lack higher-order thinking skills, such as
analyzing, evaluating and creating' This is unfortunate,
because these higher-order skills are more important than
lower-order thinking skiils. Skills such as Problem-solving and
conducting experiments and data analysis have a large skill
5ap.
(vi) Emptoyers predominantly demand the same Soft Skills
irreipective of economic sector, firm size and region' However,
firms in different regions and economic sector and of different
size demand distinct Professional Skills.
FICCI - World Bank
-
MHRD survey conducted in
September - October 2009 reveals that 64'/" of the employers
are not satisfied with the quatity of engineering graduates'
75% of engineering graduates are not employabie ' Only 25%
Technical Graduates &.1.5% Other Graduates are employable
in IT Sector - NASSCOM stated by Mckinsey Report 2005'
Nearly about 30% of Indian IT graduates are actually
employable in the IT.
National Employability Report Engineers, Annual Report
2014, brought out by Aspiring Minds, is based on a sample of
more than 1.,20,000 engineering students, who graduated in
2013, from 520+ engineering colleges across multiple Indian
states. This organisation conducts Aspiring Minds Computer
Adaptive Test, known as AMCAT, which is India's largest
and tdy standardized employability test. AMCAI covers all
objective parameters such as English communication,
quantitative aptitude, problem-solving skills, knowledge of
domain areas such as computer science and programming,
mechanical engineering, electrical engineering etc' for
determining employability in the IT/ITeS and other core
engineering roles.
Technicul Education and Development
Software Engineer - IT Product: The employability of
engineers in IT product companies is exceptionally low, to the
order of 3.21%. The study found that the candidates strongly
lacked the requisite skills: around 97.82% of graduating
engineers do not have the required programming and
ailgorithm skills required for IT product companies, whereas
76.23% show lack of soft-skills and cognitive skills.
Software Engineer - IT Services: The employability of
engineers in IT services companies is slightly better at1,8.43%.
Normally engineers selected by IT services companies are
trained over a period of 3 to 6 months, before they are assigned
to job. The hiring criterion for this industry, thus, is that the
candidate should be trainable in technical and soft skills. The
candidate is expected to possess a basic command of language
trnd technical skills, together with requisite cognitive skills to
respond to training in a short period of time. The result
reported by Aspiring Mind is quite alarming: only 18.43% of
the graduates are trainable into software engineers within a
period of 3 to 6 months.
Design Engineer-Non IT: The design engineers are
supposed to perform core engineering roles. The candidates
should, therefore, possess high analytical skills and good
command over the domain towards solving real world
problems. On an average, 60% candidates lose out because of
rrot having requisite domain skills and only 7 .49"h of engineers
with requisite specialisations have been found to be
cmployable.
Sales Engineer-Non IT A sales engineer is supposed to
perform the roles both of a salesperson who understands and
can apply engineering and an engineer who understands how-
to sell engineered systems. He/she should have technical
irrformation and problem-solving abilities to convince buyers.
Such a role requires excellent communication skills, pleasing
personality, an ability to build trust with the client, apart from
technical understanding. Only16.54% of candidates is
cmployable in this role.
69

7. Sastainable D ev elnpment through Ed,ucation
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Tec hnic al Ed.ucation und D ev elopment
Busiqess Analyst - KPO: The Knowledge Process
Outsourcing industry seeks candidates with highly developed
written cbmmunication and analytical skills. The Aspiring
Mind's study has revealed that as high as 73.63% engineers
do not exhibit the required competence in English
communication arrd 57.96% miss out on analyticaf and
quantitative skills. Thus on an average only 12 out of every
100 engineers are found ernployable for analytics roles.
Associate ITeS Operations (Hardware and
Networking): A candidate willing to join as an Associate-ITeS
Operations should exhibit basic understanding and usage of
computefs-both hardware and software-as well as be
comfortiible in English and exhibit a problem-solving
approach. The study shows that a good 35.377o candidates
are emplpyable in this role in hardware and networking sector.
Assoclate - ITeS/BPO: As high as 39.84o/o candidates are
found eligible for the BPO industry, both in tete-calling and
backend processes. However, companies do not prefer
engineering graduates for this job, as they feel that these roles
carrnot rnatch the expectations of the engineers, both in terms
of remunblation and job satisfaction.
Tech4ical Content Developer: A technical content
developef is required to possess reasonably good technical
knowledge of his/her domain subjects and a flair for writing,
as he/she may be asked to write manuals that explain the
technical Somplexities of products, technical terminology or
training content in the technical domain. With just under 60%
engineers'possessing the required domain knowledge and
about 20% possessing the required English skills, the
employalility in this role stands low at t0.81%.
Employabitity by Tier of Cities
The study by Aspiring Minds has classified different cities
as Tier 1, ler 2 and Tier 3 cities based on their population.
Cities with more than 25lakh population have been put in
Tier 1, between 5-25lakh in Tier 2 and less than 5lakh in Tier
3. The colleges have been classified as per their location. This
7t

8. 72 Sustainahle Development through Education
The study done by Aspiring Mind also looked at thd
variation i., e*ployutifiti u",J,' different states
Yl"tY
different engineering instiiutes are located' One signi
r"r"tt obtaiied by tnis study is the states with the h
number of collegls show the lowest percent employab
itr"y nr"" founf, correlation of 0'76 with the logarithm
,rr#b", of colleges with the percent employabilirl.tn tle sia
Thus,thestudentspassingoutofinstituteslocatedinthesta
tike Andhra Pradesh, fariit Nadu, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh
Chhattisgarh have been reported to hav.e very
"*ployubiity.
The employability-of the engine erih g
fr"i" ii*iit"tes located in WesiBengal is not very high'
moderately high, similar to those in Gujarat, Madhya Pra
and Maharashtra reveals the study' The engineering gradr
sfudy has, however, removed the top 10O campuses' such as
[Ts,'NIT" etc, from the data set, since these have their own
brand presence attracting students from across the country'
and are therefore outlie[ in their respective cities. Most of
these institutes source candidates through a nationwide exam'
ThestudyhasrevealedthatinstituteslocatedinTierl
have better employability for their students' As'one moves
from Tier l. to 'fuer 2 cit:res, employability itt all roles, drops'
Similareffectsaleseenwhenwemovefrominstituteslocated
in Tier 2 to those located in Tier 3 for all the roles except sales
".,gir,"ur.
The difference in employab{tY is generally lty f"l
TiJr zto Tier 3 city colleg"s *het"ut the decrease from Tier L
to Tier 2 citY colleges is drastic'
Thestudyalsoinvestigatedthedifferencesinskillsof
students in three Tiers of ciiies' Contrary to popular opinion'
Unglish language skills are not the area with the widest gap'
It I ratherlrruttitutire ability which makes these students
ir,"iigift" for^emplo5rment. This point towards poor tgac$S
piu"",i""t througtr- problem solyinq and analysis' The
'diff"r"r,." in the English and cognitive skill modules may only
be a function of the input quality of the students' I
EmployabilitY Across States
73Technical Edacution and Development
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10. Sustainable Dev elopment through Educstion Technical Edacation and Develnpment 77
from institutes located in Delhi, Punjab, Uttarakliand' B-tT
and Jharkhand have, reportedly, very high employabiliq' Tlt:
study, however, considers employability of engineers for IT
services onlY.
Employability in Metros vs. Non-Metros
The study conducted by the Aspiring Mind coinpared the
employability of candidates coming out of institutes in metro
cities with those in non-metro cities. Although their results
conformed to the general perception that institutes in metros
produce rno."
"*ployable
candidates due to better exposure
andeducationthanthoseinnon-metros,thedifferenceisnot
too much. The study conducted tests of candidates of both
.ri"gotiu. in English, quantitative ability, logical ab.ility.etc'
The"result ,"ruul that ihe students studying in Metro cities
have higher scores in all modules than students studying in
,,orr-rrr#o cities. The widest gap is in English scores whereas
the gap in other modules is very small'
Similarly, the study has found that the employability of
candidates #ith purr.,u-rrent residence in metros is higher than
those having Permanent residence in non-metros' The former
;;;go.y of lroaiautes scored higher in all modules than their
non-metro counterparts, the diiference being maximum for
English.
EmptoyabilitY in KeY Cities
The study also compared employability of students
graduating orrt of institutes located in different fnetro cities
i'r,f,".orlitty. Delhi (North) shows the highest employability'
followed bY
Kolkata (East) and cities in the West, while the lowest
employabiliiy figures were observed among colleges in
ctrennai. rne irc* in employability is quite high: for instance,
if." n proa"ct employabifty it na[it as high T 1*i" every I
candidltes and asiow as l- in every L00 in Chennai' The reason
for this skew in employability is explained againAy ]h".i'3d
in.rumbe, of colleges it',
"u.h
of these cities (see Table 4)' The
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11. 78 Sustainable Development throagh Educatian
proliferation of engineering colleges in Southem and Westem
India has brought down the employability figures. In
comparison, there are far fewer engineering colleges both in
Delhi and Kolkata.
Table 5
Number of Engineering Colleges and Population in major citiese
City Approximate Number
of Colleges
Population
Bengaluru
Chennai (including Thiruvallur)
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kolkata
Mumbai and Pune
80
87
35
90
58
151
5,438,065
4,.616,639
1.2;656,9A1
4,068,611
5;1.38,208
17 i277,21,4
Employability in Top-tier Institutes vs. the Rest
The Aspiring Mind survey also compared the
employability of engineering graduates of top L00 institutes
(as reported in various credible public surveys) with that of
the rest of the campuses (Table 5)'
The above table shows that the employability of software
engineers for IT product companies is 12.02% for top 100
institutes white it is only 2.56% for rest of the institutes. For
software engineers IT services, employability falls from
whereas the employability in IT services and Technical/
Creative Content Development roles falls from 41,52% to
16.10% for two categories of institutes. For design engineers
non-IT the employability percentage varies from21',17 to 5.98
across two categories. For technical content developer, the
employability becomes one-third (9.08%) for rest of the
insiitutes compared to that of top 100 institutes (30.61%). The
fall inemployability is not so sharp when it comes to Associates
ITeS operations (hardware networking) and ITeS/BPO.
f . ibid.
Te c hnic al Education and Dev elopment
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79