Low employability a worry

Updated on: Tuesday, December 27, 2011

National Employability Study 2011, conducted by private firm Aspiring Minds, has revealed that Tamil Nadu has a low employability percentage (8.33) in the information technology (IT) sector.

The study says employability percentage comes down with increase in number of engineering colleges. This means opening more colleges will not improve the quality of our engineers.

The number of colleges is a major factor that decides employability in a particular state, but this is not completely explained. For instance, TN has about 510 engineering colleges and Andhra Pradesh (AP) about 750, but its employability percentage of 8.33 is much lower than the neighbouring state’s 12.73. Similarly, Delhi has more colleges than Bihar but higher employability.

Employability depends on several socio-economic and developmental factors. What is required is a greater thrust on improving the quality of engineering education.

Himanshu Aggarwal, co-founder and director of Aspiring Minds, said, “Delhi has a concentration of reputed institutes and has emerged as a hub of high quality talent. In some states more than three of every 10 engineers are employable in the IT services industry, but this falls drastically to less than one in other states.”

The Aspiring Minds study is based on AMCAT - India’s largest employability test results of over 1.2 lakh engineers. It shows a drop in employability percentage of engineers across sectors. Employability in IT services companies is the highest in the North, followed by East West and the South.

Delhi, Bihar and Jharkhand have the highest employability percentage. Commenting on the study, a senior official of ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu, said, “Both TN and AP have a high number of engineering colleges. Hence, the number of engineers these states produce is also high. Since this number is higher than the number of engineers employed, the states may have been ranked lower on the [employability] index.”

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