Addressing IT’s workforce woes
Over the past 15 years, the IT industry has come a long way, witnessing unprecedented ups and downs and yet remaining one of the sectors with hope. Nasscom has predicted significant growth by 2020. To meet such large growth, India needs to develop its talent pool right at the universities.
With an about 25 lakh workforce, the Indian IT sector represents about 6% of the organised sector. Nasscom predicts the IT workforce will touch 30 million by 2020. Being heavily people-dependent, the biggest challenge for the industry will be to find the right quality engineers.
A recent national employability report states that only 20% of the engineering graduates from colleges are really employable in the IT industry. If a similar study was conducted 15 years back, the percentage of employable engineering graduates in the IT industry would have been much higher, as the industry was not as mature and expectations were comparatively low.
It is not surprising to see lower employability impacting admissions into engineering colleges. Reports indicate that there are no takers for engineering seats in many colleges. Further, over the past few years, engineering graduates from core domains like mechanical or electrical are reluctant to take IT precisely due to the same reason. In fact, many private colleges lack the intellectual infrastructure--broadband connectivity to access knowledge resources on the internet, libraries, and, most of all, a qualified and knowledgeable faculty.
A recent news report suggests that there are about 3,000 engineering colleges
