post engineering school training for industry and academic

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Supplemental training schools for the development of industry-ready
engineers by adding required knowledge and skills: The Finishing Schools
for engineers.
Sanjay R. Patel – Reader in Mechanical Engineering Department, Faculty of Technology
and Engineering, M.S.U of Baroda, Kalabhavan, Vadodara 390 001. uvnsrp@gmail.com
Nimesh T. Shah – Manager-HR, InteQ IT Services (India) Pvt. Ltd., 414 Siddharth
Complex, R.C. Dutt Road, Vadodara 390 007. nshah@inteqnet.
Abstract:
Enormous amount of outsourcing business related to Information Technology (IT) has been
flowing in to India from advanced countries and more in pipe line, especially of IT enabled
engineering services. Also India is on fast track for the infrastructural, industrial and
technological development and implementation. These require a large number of engineers
with essential quality in terms of knowledge and skills. While more than enough engineers
are produced by the engineering schools every year, majority will not meet the industry
requirement; simply considered as not employable.
For the necessary matching between required and available engineers, a concept of
Finishing Schools has been evolved aiming to prepare industry-ready engineers out of
graduate engineers. Many private Finishing Schools are in existence since long and recently
NITs and IITs have also began such schools under nationwide drive for achieving described
objective because existing curriculum and pedagogy cannot cope with the present demand of
human resources (HR). Based on more than twenty years of wide and relevant industrial
experience of respective field, authors have attempted to analyze the current HR position in
general and same is extended to engineering HR. The paper describes the knowledge and
skills to be owned by an individual engineer of any branch for right employment and
deficiencies of existing system of education and employment. It recommends The Finishing
Schools for Engineers as the solution with certain modification in prevailing ones.
Key words: Information Technology (IT), Knowledge & Skills (KNS), Outsourcing,
Engineering services (ES), Human Resources (HR), Finishing school (FS), curriculum,
pedagogy, Soft-skills.
For National Seminar on "Finishing School for Engineering Education-Concept, Design and
Impact” 21-22, October 2008

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1. Introduction: 1, 2
The increasing opportunities of quality employment for IT enabled services, whether
outsourced or for in-house and all-round development of the nation will require a large
number of engineers of good quality. Important major sectors employing engineers for
performing various functions at different level are shown in the figure 1.
But there exists a considerable discrepancy between the knowledge and skills required by the
industry and same available with the students brought out from engineering schools. Though
there can never be a perfect match between the requirement and fulfillment in any system
especially when human factor is involved. But any mismatch can be minimized up to certain
extent with the help of some kind of working, generally. Analogical solution for the problem
of preparing industry-ready engineers can be achieved by supplementary coaching/training.
Based on this concept the Finishing Schools for engineers have been evolved. FS are
generally intended for fresh or unemployed engineering graduates but engineers who want to
switch over to job with different profile.
2. The knowledge & skills required among engineers by industry today:
Traditionally most of the Indian industries expects mostly job specific KNS from any
individual to be employed, which is normally acquired out of the academic qualification and
the work experience. In present scenario this is just not sufficient, the conventional
perspective has to be enhanced, especially for engineers because of the nature of duties they
perform, levels they occupy in the working system and even the type of business
organization. Industry would prefer to have a versatile engineers but their population is very
small and may not available. So to satisfy HR requirement, engineers having right KNS are
to be searched for from the available pool! Desired KNS of any engineer can be divided in to
two distinct classes general and specific, some can be in-born but most of them are acquired.
Major sectors employing
engineers
Design & analysis
Manufacturing
Project planning and
execution
Engineering
management
Procurement
Building Construction
Erection &
Commissioning
Maintenance
Safety
Software
• Infrastructure
• Energy
• Engineering plants
• Process plants
• Industrial and consumer
goods
• Telecom
• Information Technology
• Education and Training
• Logistics and Transport
• Project planning and
execution
• Software
The functions of
engineers
Engineers
Supervisors
Managers
Executives
The positions
of engineers
Figure 1. Sectors employing engineers for various function at different position

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2.1. General requirement:
The industries require that every employee including engineers should bear following
qualities listed below with brief comments on each;
Qualification and work experience:
o The formal eligibility criteria, checked by testimonials.
Clear Fundamentals and capacity to apply the same:
o This is beyond academic record and work experience, necessary for the
responsibility to be handled.
Soft-skills:
o Soft skills are found to be an important part of the success of an organization
hence increasingly sought out by employers in addition to standard
qualifications. Divided in two groups;
Personal qualities:
• Attitude and mindset consisting positive thinking, self motivation, self
esteem, aspiring, creative thinking, independence, responsible,
integrity & honesty, sociability, time & self management,
communication skills etc.
Interpersonal Skills:
• Ability to participate as a team member, teach others, serve client /
customers, exercise leadership, negotiate, work with cultural diversity,
build relationship, manage resources etc.
Mental and Physical Fitness
o Mental fitness comprises almost all soft skills mentioned and physical fitness
can drive mental fitness and performance as well.
2.2. Special requirement:
There are number of core and specialized branches of engineering and variety of possible job
functions in each. Therefore engineers ought to have branch and work specific KNS. Most
of them are identified in the following list;
Aptitude; a personal quality of prime importance for a particular function; e.g. design
and analysis, planning, execution etc.
Ability to apply fundamentals; for ‘forward’ / ‘reverse’ engineering and problem
solving.
Awareness of international standards, codes and best practices used in industry.
Proficiency in IT tools and its application for specific function.
Knowledge of the state-of-the-art in engineering and technology of his/her
specialization and skill for utilizing whenever a chance is given.
The degree of possession of both of these in prospective employee can be tested through well
designed written tests and personal interviews. Tests would be rigorous for fresh engineers
or those having little experience. Group activities could also be conducted and the findings
should for include evaluation of candidates.

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3. Deficiencies of existing education system:
Despite having known about these, the demand-supply gap of quality and quantity of
engineers is not filling and for that existing education systems of the country are generally
blamed. Such deficiencies are identified as;
Obsolete or non-updated syllabi:
o Though the fundamentals are to remain, many a times its real world
applications or physical relevance are not emphasized. The newer concepts
are hardly incorporated and obsolete contents are not removed. Too many
varieties of subjects to be covered in stipulated time. The curriculum cover
only engineering or technological matter.
Instruction materials and Teaching-learning-evaluating methodology:
o Instruction materials for the courses being taught are of lesser quality and
teaching is generally more oriented towards theoretical aspects than the
practical aspects. Learning is just what is taught in the class rooms. On
many instances students find it difficult to understand physical relevance of
subject being taught or correlate with real world application.
o More importance is given to class room studies over laboratory. Theoretical
concepts are explained but where and how they are applied in real world is not
described. Hands-on skills are rarely demonstrated or developed.
o Theoretical exams are considered more important than practical exams.
No or weak connection with industry:
o The Engineering schools rarely make connection with industry especially on
academic matters. This has lead to increase in the gap foretold.
o The vocational training is part of curriculum at many engineering schools; the
objective of the same is not fulfilled due to lack of mutual interest. Only a few
students get chance of on-job training while rest of them does not find this
opportunity on account of various reasons.
Philosophy of curriculum to prepare generalized engineers:
o Time has come to reduce generalization and increase specialization. More
vocational curriculums are to be deployed. A very small percentage of
knowledge is used during the occupation.
4. Way the problem being solved in industries:
Unfortunately many industries are not clear about what they want as human resources. Most
companies employ engineers based on image of the institute, academic record, followed by
written test and personal interview in case of fresh or less experienced engineers. The
logical sequence and reasoning for each can be described as;
Institute’s brand image Good engineers come out of good schools.
Good academic record Sincere and hardworking individual
Written test retention of knowledge / memory (although depends on the content)
Personal Interview ability to interact and spontaneity
After fulfilling certain additional formalities, engineer enters in to an organization. His/her
induction starts with so called ‘training’ or ‘on-job training and labeled ‘trainee engineer’.

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During this he/she might be trained for the required additional skills e.g. soft-skills, job
specific KNS etc. for a stipulated period of time. After this ‘post-graduation’ training period,
he will be a confirmed employee of the organization and will sustain doing the specified job.
During this period the employee may under go some training programs or refresher courses to
acquire new or maintain existing KNS related to the work. If employee is not satisfied with
his status, he will under go transition i.e., switch over to another organization.
The cost and time involved in the training is considerably expensive in terms of money and
this investment will be sheer waste if the employee leaves the organization. Industry would
like to avoid this and some industries simply cannot cope up with expenses of the trainings.
5. The Finishing Schools for engineers: 2, 3
The Finishing Schools are recommended as immediate answer to the question of matching
requirement of engineering HR of any industry. Their intake will be graduate engineers of
the branches for which they are intended and will prepare industry-ready engineers as output.
Primarily FS is a set of add-on courses and activities designed on the basis of industry’s need
and executed ‘post-graduation’ i.e. after the normal studies of engineering at additional cost
and time.
Their strengths can be listed as follows;
No necessity of any affiliation / possible independent functioning.
Flexible in terms of its course contents and activities, matching the requirement
specified by industry.
Free competition and performance based rating of the school; faster and better
response to industry’s need, faster they grow.
Can evolve a set of modification to be integrated to conventional engineering
education for partial but long term solutions.
Limitations:
Presently most of such schools are meant for IT and IT enabled service industries.
Similar schools are yet to be developed for real or core engineering.
The curriculum seems independently developed for the FS run by NITs and IITs and
may not be proper. The faculties will also be from the same fraternity and likely to
fall short on many grounds.
The generalists will become specialists which may not be good. Such schools cannot
prepare versatile engineers required at many positions.
Students will have to invest additional time and money to undergo FS over the money
and time spent for graduation
It is not very difficult to overcome these limitations. If done, FS could become the
engineering schools themselves compelling conventional schools to follow them. It is
suggested that good FS should be there for every branch of engineering whose output should
cater to wide spectrum of industries with the help of right curriculum and pedagogy.
5.1 Curriculum, Pedagogy and Evaluation: 4
FS curriculum must attempt to include courses and activities related to general and specific
KNS development. It should aim to make proper connection between theory and application/
practice. Although the curriculum would be mostly based on the outcome of Industry-FS
interaction, experts and visionaries should take care of future requirement. Hands-on /

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practical training should be given more importance by allocating proper resources. One can
visit various websites to study curriculums of existing FS.
Faculties of FS must be well trained for the general teaching-learning process and same to be
explained to the students at beginning of the program. They should have updated practical
knowledge/ hands-on experience. The objective of each course and activity should be
explained and interactive mode to be followed through out the session and same must end
with question & answer session. Feedback system is must for corrective actions related to
comprehension. The instruction material should be quite concise and clear; should have
ample amount of graphical presentation for the explanation of any concept. Learning map to
be presented and followed.
Finally the evaluation system should be able to evaluate all the important dimensions of each
student undergoing FS program. This will help the student and faculties to concentrate or
put extra efforts for his/her weak dimension(s). On other hand employer will also evaluate
performance of ‘FS certified engineer’ and report as feedback. FS should be ready for
widening scope, improvement in the contents and introduction of super-specialization(s) if
required. Attempt to be made for FS to be dynamic and evolve constantly to keep pace with
changing needs and desires of students and industry both.
6. Summary and Conclusion:
With proper curriculum and pedagogy, the Finishing School seems to be an optimum solution
to the problem discussed on short term basis but long term strategies are to be formed and
executed quickly. FS and its importance will continue if they keep on providing solution to
the dynamic requirement of industry related to human resources.
Finishing Schools should also be extended for other sectors than their present focus on IT and
Telecom, encompassing engineers of all branches. Learning from Finishing School ought to
be used for the update of course(s) of study & teaching-learning-evaluating methodology at
engineering schools for effective education.
References:
1. www.nasscom.in
2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finishing_school_(India)
3. www.svnit.ac.in, www.nitkkr.ac.in, www.iitr.ac.in, www.nitt.edu, www.riiit.com
4. Patel S. R., “Innovation in curriculums for engineering education using
multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches”, National seminar on ‘Curriculum
Innovations in Technical and Vocational Education’, NITTTR Chandigarh, India, 27-
28 February 2007