Where do we go from here?
Currently, India has the once-in-a-lifetime advantage, namely, the demographic dividend - the youngest work force to total population ratio anywhere in the world - with the average age of workers remaining way below that of other countries.
The impact of the demographic dividend is such that it could automatically result in renewed growth for the economy. The dire shortage of skilled resources is throwing a wet blanket on our hopes to capitalize on the demographic edge before even that window of opportunity closes up.
While the demands for engineering profiles have gone up, private sector companies have been trying very hard to combat the situation. Currently, it takes an engineering graduate around 2-3 years after graduation to acquire the skills for employability in high-end engineering.
NASSCOM has come up with multiple solutions, so students can be fine-tuned for industry scenarios even as they pursue their degrees. This is done through finishing school programs, training programs for both professionals and educators, joint workshops conducted by the industry and academia, and many more initiatives.
Special industry initiatives to bridge industry-academia gap
The talent initiatives proposed by the NASSCOM Engineering Council will help smooth the transition of an engineering graduate from a student to a professional. Since the need for employable graduates is common across the industry, whether it is a BPO solutions provider or an analytics or design provider - there needs to be a common solution to the employability problem. To that end, the council plans to roll out a general template to be used in institutions across India to prepare graduates for fulfilling and rewarding roles in the industry.
A major highlight of the industry initiatives has been the ‘Ready Engineer' program designed by Tata Technologies that enables engineers to design and build better and be future-ready. As part of this program, industry experts meet up with students on a regular basis and provide them with much-needed mentoring. Students get opportunities to work on engineering designs for international clients as well as work on dissertations or live projects at global delivery centers in offshore locations. Most often, this is followed by a graduate role in the company.
NASSCOM has also come up with several training solutions and programs for end-to-end skill development of people in engineering or operational roles. To this end, NASSCOM has tied up with both government and non-government agencies to offer skill development initiatives designed for students as well as people in engineering or technical roles. A significant initiative has been the setting up of the IT-ITeS Sector Skill Council that offers qualification packs to IT services aspirants. Apart from this, most initiatives taken up by NASSCOM - like the Centre of Excellence for Internet of Things (IoT), 10,000 start-ups, National Skills Registry for IT/ITES Professional (NSR-ITP) - include major components for skill development and talent nurturing.
With the government announcing ambitious initiatives such as ‘Make in India', it is implicit that we cannot progress much without some serious upscale of our engineering capabilities. The need of the moment is for the government and the academic community at large to take cognizance of such remarkable industry-academia collaborations to bring engineering students in India up to scratch with their peers worldwide.
The author is President Sales & COO APAC, Tata Technologies.
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