More Engineering Colleges Means Less Employable Engineers, Says Study

India has seen an explosion in the number of engineering colleges, but that hasn’t helped the quality of its engineers.

Aspiring Minds, an employment solutions company, has found that states having more engineering colleges produce less employable engineers. The study on employability of engineers was based on AMCAT (an aptitude test conducted by the company) scores of over 120,000 engineering students across the country who graduated in 2013.

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The study analyzed the relationship between the employability of engineers in the IT sector and the number of engineering colleges in each state in the country. It was found that the employability generally fell with the increase of number of colleges in the state.

In the IT services sector, it was observed that employability was highest in northern part of the country followed by eastern, western and southern parts. Delhi and Bihar-Jharkhand emerged as states with the highest (over 33%) employability. 
The employability was below 15% in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The employability in IT product companies was far lower: while employability was over 12% for Bihar and Jharkhand, it was less than 2% for Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

Notably, the skill set required in the product companies is different from the services companies: in product companies, programming skills are critical while English and cognitive skills are important for service companies. It is estimated that around 15 lakh engineers enter the job market every year but their education does not equip them for the job market. A significant percentage of them run a risk of not getting any job at all after they complete their degree. Even among those who manage to get a job, the entry-level salaries of many are often meagre, the study found.