"Why do people go to engineering colleges?" - PART DEUX...Why do we have so many of them?


I read somewhere that India had over three thousand engineering colleges - three times that of the United States. There are over 1.5 million men and women graduating, every year, from these institutes! These are astounding statistics.

But what do these engineering graduates come out and do?

Here is a somewhat sobering fact based on a recent admission by the Indian HRD ministry. It said that only 7-8% of the Indian engineers graduating every year are employable.

Assuming that the number is legit, it doesn't entirely surprise me. If you have a system that churns out engineers predominantly on mechanical, electrical, and civil disciplines and then you push them into coding and testing on Java, of course, they will be unemployable. (Wait a minute! Did I just sound like RaGa there, talking about the "system" and all?).

So, Mr. HRD Minister or whoever it is that cited the statistic; rather than release press statements, how about you generate jobs to make the other 92% employable? What? Oh, that is not your department? OK.



Anyways, why do we have so many engineering colleges in India?

The first REC's were instituted in the 1950's, through the Indian government's Soviet-style five-year plan, close on the heels of the IIT's. It was to realize Nehru's grand vision of an Industrial India, manned (yeah, and womaned) by home-grown engineers. The REC's were expected to fill an anticipated shortfall of about two thousand engineers.

What has changed so much since then, that has made that supply shoot up seven-hundred fold in 55 years, when our population has increased only three-fold, during the same period (not that I am complaining about the latter fact!)? How did we become this "engineering nation"?

Even when we had graduated from college back in the 90's, India was still producing less than two hundred thousand engineers. I am inclined to believe that it must be something about people like me graduating that made a million more, take this up as a career option!

"I don't know about you but I create such revolutions!" my friend, Seshu, had once joked, in another context.


A more legitimate reason, for the sudden spurt in numbers, had to be the liberalization policy of the 90's, architected by the "silent jodi", PV Narasimha Rao and Dr Manmohan Singh.

This led to India breaking out of the "Hindu rate of growth", into something that was more..."Christian"! Lays came in sixteen flavors, pizzas were introduced with embedded paneer, there were suddenly six hundred TV channels with saas-bahu mega serials,...and other national necessities were fulfilled just like that. OK, I am being unbelievably truculent here. I know it has brought in more useful things - like, Foster's beer and Fashion TV.

Oh, it also led to the advent of that much-despised species - the call center specialists and software engineers; or as Indians (the jealous ones) call them, the tech coolies.

Engineering became a misnomer and a minimum barrier for entry for college education, especially to those that sought a serious job after graduation, leading to the exponential growth of engineering colleges.

Whether it was to pour hot metal into a ladle, sell a cake of soap, make a bhel puri, or reverentially turn on an IBM mainframe computer, engineering became the passageway to future prosperity. (Now, there are exceptions. If you aspired to inherit your dad's business and run it to the ground, be a hamming actor, head the Khap panchayat, or pursue seditious activities, you could always go to JNU!).

Twenty years after India opened up it's markets to the world, our engineering college factories are making engineers like Russia makes Kalashnikovs.
So, that explains the supply of 1.5 million - led by chips, call centers, and corrupt politicians (my boss used to say, "there has to be a 'three C's' for everything").

Coming back to the question, do we need these many engineers? Why should students learn "Fluid Mechanics" and "Applied Geology" to eventually code in Java or test programs written by our grandfathers in COBOL? Should we orient their education more towards what they are going to be doing in the future, thereby making them more "employable"?

Someone told me that would be missing the point. The whole idea of engineering education was to teach us logic, problem solving, working as a team, and good things like that, the person said. This would have been such a brilliant explanation, if only it had been true. I don't remember a single course in college, where we were taught to do things like that (If they had, "Three Idiots" wouldn't have been such a big hit, you know),

So, that is the question our policy-makers and people at HRD need to solve for the nation. Not issue press statements.

Let me end this essay with another passionate subject among faculty, parents, and grandmothers; which is the ratings of colleges.


My grandma, for a sub-matriculate, had possessed sagacious knowledge of Indian and US universities, armed with which, she provided critical input for a million matches, till her last breath.

"That fellow has a 'saada' engineering degree. Look at him walk away with that beautiful girl...and here you are plucking flowers!" she said, exhorting her daughters to be more competitive in the marriage market.

The other sources for engineering college ratings, much like my grandma, have always been questionable. My college was consistently rated as "Top 10 in the country", by our Principal, to thunderous applause by soon-to-be unemployed engineers.

Recently, someone sent a congratulatory note, saying we have been rated as the twelfth in the nation, by UGC. I told my juniors, "hang your heads in shame...we were already 'top 10' twenty five years ago". Kids these days...


So do you think we have too many engineering colleges in India? What is the alternative? Are fresh engineers of today ready to face the real world?

(I will feed all your answers back to the HRD ministry and get you coupons for engineering colleges...I promise).






Friends, if you are trying to comment on the blog, copy (CTRL+C, I meant) your comments before publishing / logging in...just in case the comments get lost out. Anonymous commenting is an option now, but it is still not working on certain devices. Sorry!



Interested in reading my other blogs?

How about my ode to old Hindi film music? Which is here --> THE GOLDEN AGE OF HINDI FILM MUSIC.

The first episode is HERE.

Or my eulogy to one of the greatest playback singers of India? SP BALASUBRAHMANYAM.

16 comments:

  1. Policy volicy stuff...ekdum Hifi topic!!
    I thought the consensus was to have a subjects inline with IQ of RECR graduates. No? Time to consult Dr. Google..will be back, hopefully soon!!
    Just wanted to be first one to comment ;-)...desi competitive spirit kicking in

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    1. I promise...the last of those! Just to close this topic out! It was bothering me based on a recent article that I had read. I had tried to make this even in the previous post, but it made the post long and confusing. So, split it into two parts. It is the season, you know...with Baahubali.

      I like the competitive "spreet"! Thanks!

      Delete
  2. Ok .. this is mind boggling .. and a bit blowing too .. maybe confusing too .. but still .. have we engineers really become dime -a-dozen ?
    You are telling me there is no hush on the streets when I walk around with a shehenshah like aura anymore ?
    Very well .. life goes on ..
    But tell me , though I didn't understand too much (not because of lack of intellect.. it's just that i am a bit sleepy), anything wrong in creating more engineers ? Can't it be treated like another graduation degree that tempers one's application skills ?
    After that most people anyway go on to do masters .. to problem kya hai Puttu ?
    And mind you .. atleast in india when you apply for a job as a post graduate , you carry more value if you are an engg graduate .. so it is the demand that creates this melee of engg colleges sprouting around ..
    Ok .. maybe I see your point in another way .. If only we had more colleges on humanities , medicine , law ... it would have been a well balanced education system ..
    But I guess the system gets defined and aligned to the ground reality in India .. where job opportunities are few and companies still value an engg degree above humanities ..

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    1. Well, treating engineering as another graduation degree is not what it was meant for. The people in these colleges were expected to be trained on specific vocations - to build a bridge, to erect and run a chemical plant, and design stuff.

      I mean it is kinda like arguing why can't people study MBBS and then be a Java developer. You could say studying to be a doctor teaches them critical thinking and problem solving. And then, they can choose their profession.

      To your other point, yes, the resources spent on starting engineering colleges are a missed opportunities for arts, humanities, law, and other colleges.

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    2. Hmmmm .. what you say is true .. never thought of it this way .. the whole idea of engg as a base graduation degree seems flawed ..
      Our education system really seems to be cluelessly messed up ..
      Not just education system ...

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  3. This topic needs the extensive support of Google to counter argue the facts and figures. Nevertheless, for the sake of a discussion, IMHO, on the demand side, there's the cultural/ mindset issue of 'Baccha engg kar lega toh accha kama lega' still works in majority of the Indian households today. Engg still has the stamp of prestige and dignity - in the job and marriage market. On the supply side, there's the corruption issue - the discreet urge to make boatloads of money through 'donation seats' in private colleges. Result: a chaotic web of wrong intent on both sides!

    Thus said, there will be a day when the demand will wane with increased change in mindset towards the non engg domains (it's already happening in small pockets in urban cities). Hopefully that's when some of the engg colleges will start to shut down. Or at least the numbers won't increase anymore. In short, there will be some level of rationalisation that will happen.

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    1. Wow ! Well said Ritu !! You understood and matched Puttindies wavelength !!

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    2. Great points, Ritu! The complex web of personal ambition, societal expectation, and corruption...! (yeah, i wanted to say something very intelligent, but suffering from writer's block!)

      But you know the demand for engineers has continued on unabated for the last 55 years. I don't know whether the real demand will ever drive the actual supply.

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  4. Still stuck with engineering colleges? OK.

    First let me compliment you on the interesting graphics & visuals. Are you getting your "scartry" to do all this stuff? Pass on my compliments to her as well.

    Coming to the 'million engineering students' question, I think the biggest culprit has been your employer. Not getting personal. I meant the IT industry, in general. The 'IT Boom' of the 90s and early 2000s meant huge requirement of manpower and ‘body shopping' agencies sprang up in every nook and corner of the country. Engineering students who were clueless as to why they chose engineering in the first place, and why they chose the branch they chose in the second place, suddenly had something to look forward to. Fat pay packets, a standard of living normally associated with the West and a hedonistic lifestyle. One could see all kinds of multinational fashion brands and fast food joints springing up. The building industry exploded and consumed vast tracts of land, land prices skyrocketed and many of the proletariat found themselves turning into millionaires overnight just because they happened to own a parcel of land in the right place at the right time.

    All this further fueled the rush and craze to cash in on the boom. Initially, IT industries were looking for computer science engineers, when that could not satisfy the yawning gap in demand and supply they decided to 'branch out' to other engineering disciplines (you only needed a logical mind and engineers had it aplenty), when this did not suffice they started looking for 'computer literate' graduates i.e. anybody with any graduate degree who had some knowledge of computers. But that is a different story.

    By now, there was a huge demand for engineers and the supply was just not there. We needed new engineering colleges. In big numbers. And that meant big money. When there is prey, the vultures can't be far behind. It became fashionable for politicians to start engineering colleges- some named after themselves, some highlighting their religious identities, some named after their wives, concubines, gods & goddesses and so on. Suddenly, an engineering education was no longer the exclusive domain of the elite. This was, no doubt, good news to the society at large. However, quantity and quality do not get along well together! Not a surprise then, that with the mushrooming of engineering colleges, quality had to take a back seat and most fresh engineers were found “not ready for the job”. Companies had to invest huge amounts on training the fresh recruits and getting them “job ready”.

    On the positive side, the IT revolution did create millions of job opportunities. Many students from far-flung areas got into IT jobs that changed their lives forever. Not exaggerating here: our house maid’s daughter studied IT in a local engineering college and managed to land a decent job.
    Of late, the IT ‘bubble’ has shrunk in size if not burst completely and one hears of any number of fresh engineers remaining unemployed for long periods of time. One of my relatives who studied from “Prince Engineering College” is unemployed since two years. There are cases where some engineering graduates have even taken up low-paying, bottom-of-the-rung jobs.
    These days, there are cases of seats in many engineering colleges not getting filled up. Probably, students are becoming wiser and want to choose other paths less trodden. I certainly hope so for their own good.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Hey hey hey! Isn't there an internet injunction that the size of the comment cannot be longer than the blog post itself :-). I was only kidding!

      Now...maybe I wasn't. Straight, frontal attack on me and my company??? What the...this may be the last blog I write as an employed person!

      But that is my point...I don't think IT companies are going to drive policy. They will take what is available to them. Shouldn't the government be doing something about how they orient the degrees and courses according to the demand they see from IT companies, bio-tech companies or others?

      I am scared for the IT bubble bursting. My extended family, who almost without exception are in IT, are starring at unemployment if Trump and/or the bots break the bubble! Will not be a pleasant situation. We are sorely missing our grandma, who, if she were alive, would have directed us to the right college and profession.

      Delete
    2. Well, I would definitely not recommend "Prince Engineering College". I am sure your grandma will agree with me.

      Delete
  5. Awesome, thought provoking blogging, Mr Puttu (thanks to Rachna for this catchy name) . I really like the images too.
    I think the question of why we have so many colleges and engineering graduates has been eloquently answered by comments above, particularly Krishna's.

    The question of how to solve this problem has been resolved by Ritu's prediction of the demise of these colleges.

    I wanted to touch on the point you made about such a large percentage of these engineering graduates being un-employable. I think that is in part due to the same reasons we all quoted in your first post. A large majority of the students entering and going through these engineering colleges are there because they think it is right thing to do, or they have been told to do it. They are not there because they wanted to be there. They go through college with no curiosity, no interest to learn anything more than what is strictly necessary to make the passing grades, and no sense of accomplishment at having learnt some useful life changing skills.
    I think that is the reason a lot of those graduates are unemployable right after graduation. I speak from personal experience. I did relatively well in college, made decent grades and was able to walk out of college with a plan for the future, in the form of an admission to a good Masters program. But I don't think I would have ever considered myself a good , employable chemical engineer .
    The first time I realized this was when I was in a class in the US, working on a really hard assignment. A guy in the class asked me if I was able to solve it. I said yes, and out of years of habit, handed him my paper, fully expecting him to copy it. (I would have copied his without batting an eyelid, if I was stuck) . He said "No. I will do it. I just wanted to know if it was solvable" . Straightforward as that sounds , at the time, fresh out of college in India, this was such a shocker to me.
    When students go though college with that attitude, they will come out highly employable. There would be less training required to bring them up to par. The large number of graduates, and the small number of jobs would then no longer be such a big problem. We would be outsourcing engineers like we do IT personnel now.

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    1. "...They go through college with no curiosity, no interest to learn anything more than what is strictly necessary to make the passing grades, and no sense of accomplishment at having learnt some useful life changing skills. "

      I don't know how many times I have to tell you guys not to get personal! Krishna attacked my company and you are directly attacking me. Come on.

      Seriously, great points about student mindsets that play a role in employability. That is really like a "kick in the gut". Just blaming it on policymakers and chips is not good enough. It is, at the end, an integrity statement, isn't it? Great point, Sita!

      Now, I feel better at not being able to pour metal into a ladle. I was destined to be what I was truthful to (president of Rajnikant fans' association)!

      Delete
    2. @ Sita,
      Beg to disagree with you. Of course, we were all curious students and wanted to learn many things.
      Only, what we wanted to learn was not in the Rengcolian syllabi.
      Do you mean to say, for example, that Don was not curious? He knew more about what was going on in LH than the inmates themselves.

      Delete
    3. I am glad you begged before you disagreed. That may get you off the hook!

      Delete
  6. Okay. here goes my thoughts. So what if there are so many engineering colleges and the mushrooming of the colleges has led to a large number of engineers who may be “unemployable”. I find it a kind of elitist mindset to bemoan the mushrooming of colleges. The more the merrier. It is the students who make the college good or bad and these colleges might be producing some “employable” engineers at worst. It is the difference in the schooling system that has led to this difference at the higher education levels.

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