By Anurag Awasthi
India is well poised with a unique demographic dividend with a younger workforce profile and a large pool of technically aligned populace. The future of chip design and manufacturing lies in the quality of engineering education and skill Development. This critical aspect has been identified by the Government, Industry and Academia in India and a large amount of emphasis is being accorded likewise.
Engineering as a discipline and gaps
With 1.5 million engineering graduates every year and a software and IT boom in the recent two decades, there are a few takers for microelectronics, electrical, chemical and material engineering. The two main arguments for the same are lack of awareness and availability of job options as compared to pursuing computer science and allied disciplines. It is therefore pivotal to address these two aspects to mitigate the skill gap in ESDM and semiconductor space to begin with.
In terms of sociometric issues, an engineering degree provides social acceptance but a large number of them end up pursuing management to pursue corporate careers and even civil services, besides a large volume of drop outs.
The software boom of the early nineties and the dot com revolution gave a much-needed impetus to STEM education in the country. This facilitated a large number of colleges to come up but a concurrent lack of adequate campus placement from tier 2 and tier 3 colleges has now made it a low subscribed exercise.
In spite of such volumes of engineering graduates, there exists a faculty deficit and lack of a mechanism to retain instructional talent. The reasons for non-retention of instructional talent encompasses low remuneration, low availability of cutting-edge R&D and associated funding. Furthermore, academia is a domain with a continuous learning trajectory. Most Indian engineering institutions lack upskilling and re skilling programs for their faculty which needs an urgent policy intervention.
This in itself has a direct significance to curating an adaptive syllabus aligned with the future. As a direct consequence, the age-old dictum of ‘Publish or Perish’ does not hold too much of meaning and lesser academic papers and low standard of research is accrued in most technical institutions. A continuous industry interface during the course of engineering curriculum also needs to be factored as part of policy to cater for future chip design and manufacturing in India.
A majority in the industry promulgate a view that engineering schools do not focus enough to equip students with critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The higher education systems put the blame on schools with a premise that school education system is very theoretical.
The parents blame the schooling system. This quagmire is further compounded by the rapid technological leaps we are making on a day-to-day basis without adequately ensuring that the generations imminently entering the workforce are fully equipped.
A Multi layered approach
In the first layer, skilling of workforce in Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) which have been pivotal in providing skilled workforce in nearly all sectors need to be enabled with courses in semiconductors and components, consumer electronics, IT hardware, PCB design and industrial automation.
This layer is manpower intensive and can have linkages with private institutions which can be funded by corporates, industry associations and CSR funding. This in itself can be the bedrock of talent pool with a designated, yet a dynamic syllabus which can be promulgated in an online/offline format. While there has been a notable progressive thought and action in this domain, a centralised coordination will be a force multiplier in future.
Short diploma courses for undergraduate students with practical experience in chip design by nominated institutions of repute can also be a part of this layer. The second layer could target undergraduate courses in engineering and altering preferences of the students. The third layer could look at specialisation/master’s degree and requires building of capacities, investing in faculty which is homegrown or from abroad.
The fourth layer can look into the dynamics of making India, the R&D hub with years of expertise in design and capabilities to plug in the global supply chains in terms of chemicals as well as materials. This will encompass world class testing laboratories which can be made on the existing ones as well as following a de novo approach with varied models as options.
New incentives for international trusted partners for pooling their talent to train our own is also an option which can be explored. Talent exchange by the industry or a joint workforce development initiative is another option which can be considered post weighing its pros and cons.
Waypoints for becoming a Semiconductor Hub
If we have learnt anything from the ongoing COVID pandemic, it is that we face an unpredictable world which warrants thinking agility and adaptability. A larger impetus on hardware related engineering courses and skilling in this space thereby transcends from basic certification to post-doctoral degrees. Shortages in this domain are likely to be increasing and a lot of long-term remedies will need to be put in place, besides funding and investment.
A large impetus to hardware related engineering courses and skilling will need more prominence especially in high end chip manufacturing processes. With a large consumer base of beyond a billion, being in the pole position as the global fintech adapter, being on the second place in internet users of the world and with the world’s third largest start-up ecosystem, India is poised to be the digital powerhouse of the future.
Skilling, thereby needs to be the focal point of attention as India embarks on a journey to build fabs, compound semiconductors and embrace a high growth rate of ESDM industry with a robust edifice of policy framework. An adaptive engineering education and focussed skilling of the future ready workforce is the very core of semiconductor design and manufacturing in the future.
While the New Education Policy (NEP) is a pathbreaking reform with STEM subjects at its core, application and outcome-based education to homogenise skill development with a view to incentivise bright minds to choose hardware domain will be the game changer for the future.
The author is Vice President (India Electronic & Semiconductor Association).
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