Some of that money will go towards establishing three new IITs and one new IIM at a cost of about Rs86 crore. Another 20 National Institutes of Technology, which were previously called regional engineering colleges run either by the state or the Union government, will see their budget increase to about Rs893 crore. Still, that investment is a 156% increase in the government’s previous budget for higher and technical education.
At the same time, these measures don’t address a problem that is endemic to most of engineering colleges: the low standards of teaching. In Tamil Nadu, 150 engineering colleges (out of 274) had a failure rate of 65%, (which means 65% of the students failed).
The National Association of Software and Service Companies, which represents blue-chip companies that have led India’s growth in the last few years, says less than one in four of India’s engineering graduates are employable—a direct result, critics say, of the lack of qualified teachers in India’s colleges. The remaining 75% can barely speak English, don’t work in groups or have the requisite technical skills.
“We are getting a badly educated and badly trained workforce,” said Pai, the human resources director for Infosys.
Almost all of Infosys’s new hires go through a 16-week educational course that costs the company about $5,000, or Rs2,00,000 to educate each student. Most of that time is spent teaching fundamentals that the students should have learnt in college, said Pai.
“This is the biggest challenge for growth in the next 10 years; not power, not infrastructure, because at least in those sectors we have a national policy,” he said.
mehul.s@livemint.com