Fresh Engineering Degree Graduates - Most Will Be Condemned To A Life of Misery!

Engineering Degree Holders Everywhere, But Very Few Are Capable And Employable!

Imagine being marooned on a boat at sea without fresh water, there is ‘water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink’.  Similarly, the mushrooming of ‘education industry’ is turning out lot of degree holders but very few are employable.

Colleges offering professional degrees have grown like weeds. The weeds  grow quickly and  add to the greenery.  They look good.   However, just like weeds hinder the growth of crops, many of these private professional colleges have prevented a solid educational foundation for the youth of Andhra Pradesh.

Last year, about 1.8 lakh engineering and MCA students completed their education.  Not even a small fraction of them have got jobs. The job market is so disappointing that many students just stopped looking for jobs.  Fresh graduates no longer enroll for computer courses to enable them to get jobs. Computer training institutes are not seeing enough people enroll.

When someone does an engineering or MCA it is a one-way route.  You cannot really get out of that field into another field.  Honestly, how many pharmaceutical companies will hire a BTech Civil Engineer as pharma salesperson.  Or how many retail companies will hire BE (Computers) as Customer Service officer.  However, if the same person had done a BA or BCom they would not have an issue with either a pharma sales job or the retail customer service job.  A couple of years later, they can always do an MBA or MCA and change their careers and be a productive and responsible members of the society.

Over the past decade, with the increase of engineering seats from 4,000 to about 2 lakhs - every Yelliah, Mallama and Ramulu can get a seat in Engineering. The student and family feels great - like they did for those who graduated last year. I am doing Engineering or my son will be an Engineer.  A parent might have thought – my son’s life will be ‘settled’.  Well that was till last year!

The quality of education and the talent levels of those admitted are so low for 98% of all these engineering students that they may be condemned to a life of misery.  Their career prospects or chance of a well paying professional job no better than someone who does an Unani or Ayurveda Medicine degree from some unrecognized institute.

The Satyam saga may ultimately affect a few thousands familites– that too only temporarily!  However, the epedemic growth of higher education colleges has destroyed or will destroy the future of lakhs of lower and middle-income families.  There are so many of them who have taken loans, sold possessions and made many sacrifices in the hope that their kids will be well settled.  

Today, their kids employability is a question mark.  However, in order to get those degrees they borrowed lakhs of rupees.  The chance of the kids repaying the loans with a well paying job are not very promising. Not for this year, but for a long time into the future.  

With lakhs of low quality students being admitted into professional courses – there is a possibility that the current education policy has destroyed the future of an entire generation who may have been better of doing ITI / Polytechnic diplomas or a regular BA, BSc, BCom degree.  Such degrees might have helped them find a honest and stable technician or service jobs that would have been better matched to their abilities.

The only good thing about the current recession is that it may compell many parents to really think hard before admitting their ‘not so smart kid’ into a low quality college offering professional degree. A degree from such a college has little value in the job market.  Even NASSCOM publicly admits that only 25% of the engineering graduates are employable! That was a few years ago, before the vast increase in new professional engineering colleges.