In an effort to improve their students’ employability, technical institutions, including the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs), are resorting to external employability tests which help the students in selecting their career paths. This assumes importance in the light of the fact that of the 6.5 lakh engineering graduates who pass out from colleges every year, only 25% are employable and nearly two-thirds need to be re-skilled so that they can get jobs in the industry.
IIT-Kanpur, for instance, used the Aspiring Minds Computer Adaptive Test (AMCAT) from assessment solutions firm Aspiring Minds to test almost 500 students at the undergraduate, post-graduate and MSc levels.
The test has various sections ? English, Quantitative analysis, Computer programming, Computer fundamentals, Personality, Electronics and semiconductors, Civil engineering, Mechanical engineering and Logical ability.
?The test is voluntary for the students and it guides them according to their aspirations and aptitude and is important to plug the misfits arising out of job insecurity,? said SG Dhande, director, IIT-Kanpur.
The initiative gives students a chance to position themselves for a job suitable to their skills and also brings them under the employment radar of companies.
Not only the premier IITs, but 17 of the 20 NITs also use AMCAT. The entire 2010 batch of B Tech, MCA and M Tech of NIT-Jamshedpur underwent the testing on modules which included English, Logical reasoning, Quantitative ability, Engineering and a unique personality test, which allowed the students access to corporates who use the results to hire students with skill sets matching the job requirements.
?The test makes the student aware of his skills, areas of improvement and what the industry is looking for in him. Students get into our database and are then approached by companies for recruitment,? said Varun Aggarwal, co-founder of Aspiring Minds?whose AMCAT has been taken by almost 3.5 lakh students till now.
Students of Calcutta University, Hyderabad University and Indira Gandhi National Open University have also taken the test.
Dhande added that though the external employability test had helped students cope with parental and peer pressure and would continue in the future also, IIT-Kanpur had no plans to make it mandatory.