Campus Hiring of Engineering Students is Drastically Going Down. What Must Institutes Do?

Dr Pramod Bhatia

Associate Professor

Department of ME,

The NorthCap University

We have made a mistake! State governments and the Central Government encouraged that mistake! A large number of engineering colleges were established during the last 15 to 20 years in India. The result was a huge mismatch in supply and demand. Supply outnumbered the demand. But this is just one side of the coin. Many students who enrolled in engineering colleges either did not want to become engineers or they did not have the temperament and zeal for the same. 

So now we are faced with two problems: 

1.    We do not have jobs for all the engineers who are graduating
2.    Not every engineer who graduates is employable.

Twenty years ago this was not a problem. Engineers were respected and fifty years ago they were called ‘Engineer Sahab’. All that has changed now. These days many engineers work at the salary of a driver. There is no short term solution for this and the job market will eventually force engineering colleges to change their strategy. 

However, in the meantime, we can do our part: we should change the mentality of students from ‘employment seekers’ to ‘employment creators’. We already have enough ‘employment seekers’ in our country, however, we are starved of ‘employment creators’. Rather than producing engineers we have to target producing ‘Entrepreneur-Engineers’, who are passionate about creating innovative products and about solving real problems of society through innovative means. Students’ mentality has to change from ‘I need a job’ to ‘I want to solve real problems of society’. There is no company in this world that does not need ‘problem solvers’. And there is no ‘problem solver’ who will ever remain jobless. If you have the passion and zeal for solving the problems of society, earning your living or having a job will become a natural by-product for you. Every society and country has thousands of problems, but there are very few ‘problem solvers’. We have to encourage everyone to become a ‘problem solver’. There is no question of joblessness when everyone is busy in solving the problems of society or in improving the society. I am yet to meet a person who feels that his country or society has no problem to be solved. Let me know if you find such a person! 

Long term solution lies in being selective while enrolling students for engineering courses and in making our curriculum and its implementation useful and effective. Good quality student input naturally leads to good quality output. However, this quality output is not possible unless we provide quality training to our students. Although training of technical skills is important, training of attitude is far more important. Attitude is what will make the difference. A motivated person with the right attitude and right technical skills is the key to success. 

The Government on the other hand has to create conducive policies which encourage job creation and entrepreneurship. Government has to proactively assist engineering colleges to improve their quality. In the current scenario, private colleges receive no financial support from the Government. As a result, these private institutes have to rely on fees from the students. Education is the collective responsibility of the Government and private players. A proactive support from the Government will go a long way in improving the infrastructural and other facilities that have currently been provided to students of private institutions.