IITs and the future of engineering: Why there’s hope amid the gloom

Source: The post is based on the article “IITs and the future of engineering: Why there’s hope amid the gloom” published in The Indian Express on 14^th June 2023.

Syllabus: GS 3 – Employment

Relevance: concern associated with employment in India

News: The director of IIT Madras has recently said in an interview that IIT graduates are not interested in taking core engineering jobs.

Should IIT graduates be allowed to take non-core jobs?

Even though society might not be ready to accept it, freedom should be given to the IIT graduates in pursuing their career choice.

Moreover, it is also a high salaried non-core jobs that attract the graduates.

Why are some non-core salaries so high for IIT graduates?

The optimistic answer is that core engineering education equips students with practical and transferable skills due to its emphasis on real-world applications, empirical truths, and attention to practicality.

This distinguishes it from non-core engineering disciplines (Physics, Economics) that may not have the same level of direct applicability and controlled experimentation.

However, the pessimistic answer is that employers only look for the tag of IIT and offer a high salary rather than looking at their education.

What is the current employment situation for other graduates in India?

There are many engineering colleges producing many engineering graduates in India every year. Many graduates from these colleges have been dismissed as “unemployable”. 

However, even if these colleges make their graduates more employable, there are not enough employers. Further, non-engineers’ graduates face more hurdles in getting employed.

Out of India’s 140 crore people, only three crore report salary income in their tax returns.

How are employment conditions worldwide?

China: It has relatively few young people and proportionately fewer women. Hence, it has a smaller number of workforces requiring less jobs compared to India.

Western Europe: In Western Europe, several native populations are declining, which will eventually lead to lower employment demands.

US: It allowed “practical training” wherein graduating foreign students were given a year to find work. This helped many people stay on permanently. That period of practical training is now three years for STEM graduates.

However, even in the US, the students have shifted from opting core engineering to learning newer topics like AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning).

Since these fields are new, it attracts funding for the universities and tends to create more jobs.

What lies ahead?

The population of China is declining while Brazilians are inefficient in speaking English language. This provides India’ next generation opportunity to opt for core engineering as rewarding career plan.