A difficult transition
K. RAMACHANDRAN
|
The IT industry is sending out the message that poorly prepared students may fall short of its high recruitment standards
|
Photo: S. Siva Saravanan
INDUSTRY-READY? Students look to their colleges for training in a composite set of skills.
A joint initiative by a professional organisation and a self-financing professional college near Chennai to provide first-year engineering students a fresh insight into the question of employability is perhaps a pointer to a new trend in industry-institute interaction.
The initiative has one simple objective: industry professionals want to participate more in the educational process of a student so that he or she becomes more "industry-ready.'' Also it seeks to help industry take ownership of the process of a student maturing into an industry professional.
Student convention
The Computer Society of India is teaming up with Rajalakshmi Engineering College for organising a national student convention to prepare first-year ECE, computer science, information technology and MCA students across the country to interact with industry experts and captains.
The meet is to be held on March 8, 9 and 10. Leaders of IT and ITES companies such as Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant and Wipro, academic heads and NASSCOM representatives will talk to youngsters on what the industry wants and expects from students and how the latter can make themselves more prepared for the recruitment process.
Dean of Computer Science and IT at Rajalakshmi Engineering, V.N. Srinivasan says the I year students are encouraged to submit thoughts or application proposals in areas such as e-governance, IT for society, health care, hospitality, education, entertainment, communication, manufacturing, finance and insurance. "Even the best questions will earn prizes." Debates and questions are also planned as part of the convention, he adds.
(Download the forms from www.rajalakshmiengg.com/
csibranch.htm).
The idea of the meet is also to establish a network among the students of these branches, and their combined attempt to make themselves thorough professionals will turn into a national movement and make India a big IT power.
Prof. Srinivasan says: "If India were to produce five million IT professionals in the next three years (a highly realisable target, provided everyone works in earnest), we need the ambience and correct inputs for organic growth." Making a strong case for this kind of initiative, a former head of the CSI, C.R. Muthukrishnan of Tata Consultancy says students who score high marks and enter engineering or professional colleges go through a transition period. Many feel the pressure of this transition and fall back in grades.
Not difficult
"The largest number of failures is in engineering mathematics, that too in the first few semesters. However, they can be told that it is not difficult to undergo the engineering programme and what is needed is a little more attention and change in attitude... " Pursuing marks and grades is not wrong, but they are not everything. They should also see the degree programme as a process that comprises syllabus, examinations, soft skills acquisition and continuous and consistent performance in all subjects, and all this in correct balance. However, someone has to take ownership for their capability to be employed in industry later, Mr. Muthukrishnan adds. What then do students and campus leaders expect from industry to achieve this?
T. Kannan, correspondent Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai, and industrialist, says one way to start off is for companies to bring out records of the previous year. "Let them get recruits of a college and say who failed to get a job and why. Then there can be an analysis of the gaps that led to failure. Address them and this is a starting point." This idea should get into infrastructure and core engineering companies too.
Industry needs
A.M. Natarajan, principal, Kongu Engineering College, Erode, says students these days even from the first year have started aligning their career plans with industry needs. "Even a first-year student now asks our help to prepare resumes to meet industry standards," which, he says, is a good trend.
Recently, Wipro head Azim Premji and his team met with the top 60 colleges in south India and bluntly told them to increase employability factor of their students. Wipro was also looking at B.Sc students for recruitment, if they had the right temperament and learning skills.
Another veteran teacher and expert of AICTE committees M. Ponnavaiko feels that industry organisations that want to get into the educational process of students need to have an academic interface wing within the company that can create and update relevant knowledge to students, perhaps, using the online route as a value-add to the university curriculum.
They should bring in students and teachers into the workplace, casting away inhibitions. Academics say that students who enter B.E. through the lateral route (with diploma qualification), from the vocational branch and quite a number from Tamil Medium are those who have arrears in the course and also fail to enter industry. This is an issue that needs to be jointly addressed as part of industry-institute-community interaction.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Education Plus
Karnataka
Chennai
Coimbatore
Hyderabad
Madurai
Tiruchirapalli
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
