The problem of employability of the youth is a burning issue which has caught the attention of the Prime Minister of our country who plans to support an aggressive apprenticeship initiative that would lend more power to the efforts of NSDC and other State government programmes. A lot of well researched data is available at our disposal to plan and implement scalable programmes to take advantage of the demographic dividend of the country. Industry associations and consulting companies have carried out extensive research about engineering education and the quality of output and have been indicating that corporates find 25-30% of the graduating students employable. This has left us to often wonder about the fate of the rest of the students and how do they cope with the demands of employability and the communities that they are part of. In this column, we will examine the various segments of students who finish their education, develop an understanding of their profiles and aspirations to be able to plan for their employability needs.
Based on the studies conducted with the engineering colleges, it has been observed that typically amongst the engineering students, approximately 25% of the students are those who are not successful in all the semesters and therefore by the time they reach the seventh semester when most campus placements begin, they are not considered for placement. These students on an average take two additional years to clear their backlogs. During this time, some of them manage to find jobs in small companies. Others complete their education and seek opportunities in areas not necessarily related to engineering education but in all sorts of unrelated areas starting with retail sales to becoming administrators and contact centre agents. These students require special attention and vocational training support while they are in the college as well as when they are outside the system so that even if they migrate to unrelated areas, they go with the right skills and ability to build successful careers.
Recruitment policy of most companies is to consider for selection only those candidates who have successfully cleared all semesters. Amongst the group of 30% students who receive offers, atleast 5% of them after accepting the offer, prefer to go abroad for higher studies. Colleges which they belong to help them in honing their communication and business skills and help them improve their employability quotient so that corporates view them as capable of being productive in their environment. Further development in their careers is partly addressed by the corporates and these individuals have the adequate exposure and opportunity to equip themselves with the cutting edge skills.
Some interesting facts emerge about the remaining 45% students. With the setting up of multiple engineering colleges in the length and breadth of the country there are not only seats available (around 15 lakh seats) for those who are interested to pursue engineering education but due to proximity of these colleges to their places of residence, government support for tuition fee for almost 40-50% of the students enrolled in the colleges and loan facility being available for others, lowering of minimum marks (as low as 45% in some cases) access to engineering education has become relatively easy. As a result a segment of families enrol their wards into engineering colleges not necessarily with the aim to find jobs after education but to provide them with the good education and exposure leading to improved social standing in their communities where many of these students are first time college goers. These families have access to reasonable income and pursue their own businesses or agriculture activities and prefer that their wards join them after their education to carry on their activities in their towns or villages.
It is estimated that atleast 20% of the candidates fall into this bracket in the colleges located in rural and semi rural areas. It is important to identify this group of students early in their academic cycle in the second or third semester and provide them with the knowhow and tools to build entrepreneurial businesses or be self employed or support them in modernising and scaling their family businesses with the requisite skills. The potential to expand their income base and create employment opportunities for others is huge with this segment alone if there is a careful thought given to grooming and coaching the candidates.
We are finally left with 25% of the engineering graduates who are possibly not found suitable for employment with the corporate sector during their campus recruitment process. Atleast 15% of them manage to find jobs on their own with other firms at almost 80% average salary within 6 months of leaving the campus or go in for higher education. Another 10% manage to find jobs with the government, banks, teaching and other businesses over a one year period. This is another segment which requires direction and help with the right training which would open the right doors for them in segments where there is shortage of skilled engineers.
The key take away from all this slicing and dicing is that it is important to look beyond the oft quoted percentages of lack of employability of engineering graduates and segment them carefully to arrive at cluster specific customised interventions that can lead to gainful rewards. In addition to this, the responsibility of designing and implementing systematic interventions should be led by the specialists within educational institutions who have the requisite training and background or else educational institutions should partner with specialist training organisations to deliver on this crucial agenda.
The writer is CEO, Global Talent Track, a corporate training solutions company