NATIONAL-EMPLOYABILITY-REPORT-ENGINEERS-2011-12.pdf

8/9/2019 NATIONAL-EMPLOYABILITY-REPORT-ENGINEERS-2011-12.pdf

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National Employability Report

Engineering Graduates

Annual Report

2011


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Aspiring Minds’ National Employability Report – Engineering Graduates, 2011 Page 1

Table of Contents

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................... 2

Executive Summary ......................................................................................................................................... 4

Methodology ................................................................................................................................................... 6

I. Employability by Sectors ......................................................................................................................... 7

II. Employability by Gender ....................................................................................................................... 10

a. Gender Ratio in Higher Education .................................................................................................... 10

b. Employability by Gender ................................................................................................................... 13

III. Employability by Region .................................................................................................................... 15a. Employability by Tier of Cities ........................................................................................................... 15

b. Employability across States ............................................................................................................... 18

c. Employability in Metros vs. Non-Metros .......................................................................................... 21

d. Employability in Key Cities ................................................................................................................ 23

IV. Employability Variance in Campuses ................................................................................................ 25

a. Employability in top-tier campuses vs. the rest. ............................................................................... 25

b. Employability in Govt. and PrivateColleges ...................................................................................... 26

c. Employability Variance across Colleges ............................................................................................ 28

Appendix ....................................................................................................................................................... 31


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Introduction

The importance of higher education in relation to the progress of the individual and the nation

cannot be overstated. In today’s world, the intellectual capital of a nation is its biggest strength in

driving socio-economic growth. For an individual, higher education is not only a means of

intellectual pursuit, but also a catalyst to become self-dependent financially to lead a respectable

life. We as a Nation have been the beneficiaries of the new knowledge based world economy and

so has been the consistently growing Indian middle class. To continue on this growth path and

allow its advantages to trickle down to the masses, we need to continue to audit the quality of our

higher education system, identify gaps and implement constructive interventions for a better

tomorrow.

In 2009, Aspiring Minds released the first National Employability Report for technical graduates.

The report, for the first time, defined employability for different corporate sectors and profiles,

and analyzed the percentage of technical graduates employable in each sector. The reported low

employability served as an eye-opener, suggesting a pressing need for education and policy

reforms. It also detailed how a major proportion (70-80%) of employable engineering graduates is

outside the top 100 engineering colleges. Given that most corporations hire only from the top-tier

campuses, this creates an artificial fall in the supply of employable engineering graduates and

deprives many talented individuals from even getting an opportunity to a hiring process. Covered

widely by national and international media, the report successfully identified key problems

affecting the education-employment ecosystem in India, and led to a constructive debate.

The present edition is an expanded and more detailed report based on most recent data – more

than 55,000 engineers who graduated in 2011. It goes deeper to identify patterns in employability

across different regions and kinds of colleges, analyzing in detail the distribution of

employability. Herein, it studies how employability varies across different groups:

How many employable females vs. males graduate every year?

Which regions exhibit high employability, and why?

How different is employability in private and government colleges?


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Are most colleges producing the same percentage of employable candidates, or is there a

wide variation?

Such results are indispensible to enable targeted intervention in different groups and kinds of

colleges. At the same time, it is a first step toward hypothesizing the causes for low

employability.

Such an analysis allows one to measure some key drivers of economic and intellectual growth.

This measurement provides a tracking mechanism to see how India is progressing year on year

toward building a powerful, enlightened and equitable nation. Aspiring Minds is committed to

actively provide feedback about employability and higher education to all stakeholders through a

yearly report card.

With commitment to the development and progress of higher education in India!

Varun Aggarwal

Co-founder and Director

Aspiring Minds Assessment Pvt. Ltd.


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Executive Summary

The key findings of the present study are as follows:

The percentage of ready-to-deploy engineers for I T jobs is dismally low at 2.68%.

Even though India produces more than five lakh engineers annually, only 17.45% of them are

employable for the IT services sector, while a dismal 3.51% are appropriately trained to be

directly deployed on projects. Further, only 2.68% are employable in IT product companies,

which require greater understanding of computer science and algorithms. An economy with a

large percent of unemployable qualified candidates is not only inefficient, but socially

dangerous. The right training, at one end, and employability assessments acting as feedback at

the other, will help both in goal-setting and tracking progress to make a larger proportion of

engineers in India employable.

There are considerably more males than females in engineering, but with equal

employability.

The ratio of male-to-female engineers is 1.96, which is higher than the population ratio (1.06),

but much lower than that of other countries, such as United States of America (4.61). The

percentage of employable male and female engineers is similar across sectors, yet the current

ratio of females to males employed in IT industry is lower than that of the engineering

population. Efforts are required to encourage more females in engineering education and jobs

across the nation.

Concentr ating on increasing quanti ty of engineers has impacted quali ty drasticall y.

With regard to employability percentage in different states, it was found that employabilitydecreases logarithmically with the number of colleges in the state (in sync with Arrow's

hypothesis). This clearly shows that opening more colleges is directly impacting the

percentage of employable engineers graduating every year. The need of the hour is to focus on

not opening more colleges, but improving the quality of education in existing institutions.


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The long tai l of employable engineers is getti ng missed out by corporations.

The report found that the top 100 colleges have higher employability as compared to the rest

of the colleges (as much as two to four times). Despite this, more than 70% of employable

candidates for any sector are in campuses other than the top 100. It was found that 50% of

employable candidates for IT services companies and 28% of employable candidates for IT

product companies are not even in the top 750 colleges, and thus form invisible pool to most

employers. This signals that a large proportion of employable engineers are ending up without

any opportunity, which is a dangerous trend for higher education.

The qual ity of education varies drasticall y, with only a very f ew colleges at the top of the

quali ty ladder.

With regard to employability distribution among campuses, it was found that the quality of

education falls steeply among the top-ranked colleges, implying that even colleges ranked

very closely have very different quality of education. A large number of colleges are at

exceptionally low employability: bottom 45 percentile campuses have less than 1 in 100

candidates employable in an IT product company, while the bottom 20 percentile campuses

have none. This means there is an urgent need to reduce the quality-gap between colleges and

get them above a minimum threshold.


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Methodology

The report is based on a sample of more than 55,000 engineering students from 250+ engineering

colleges across multiple Indian states. All these candidates graduated in 2011.1

The analysis and

findings of this report are based on the results of these students on AMCAT: Aspiring Minds

Computer Adaptive Test, which is India’s largest and only standardized employability test.

AMCAT covers all objective parameters for determining employability in the IT/ITeS sector such

as English communication, Quantitative aptitude, problem-solving skills and Computer Science

and Programming skills. The test was conducted under a proctored and credible environment

ensured by Aspiring Minds.

Employability has been quantified based on the benchmarking studies done at various companies

in different sectors by Aspiring Minds. Currently, AMCAT is used by more than 120 companies,

including five of the top-ten IT services companies in India, for their assessment and recruitment

solutions. The benchmark for employability in a profile and sector is defined by a theoretical

understanding and empirical validation of the knowledge, cognitive skills and domain expertise

required. The benchmarks established for different profiles ensure both elimination of

unsuccessful candidates for a job (type I error) and inclusion of all candidates who will be

successful in the given job (elimination of type II error). The same has been validated among

multiple companies in various sectors.

Together with the AMCAT scores, the various demographic details of the candidates are also

captured by Aspiring Minds’ testing platform, which has enabled a comprehensive and

meaningful analysis provided in the report.

1The sample was statistically balanced across various parameters to be representative of the true technical graduate population. A

carefully chosen stratified sample was used for the study.


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I. Employability by Sectors

Engineers are absorbed in many different job profiles and sectors in the industry. The major

sectors employing engineers in large numbers were identified and studied to determine the

percentage of employable engineers across the nation. The criteria for employability are based on

the studies conducted with various corporations in these sectors, benchmarking their current

employees in various profiles through objective assessment based on AMCAT and establishing

feedback through on-job performance data. These benchmarks serve as a standard for several

large-sized companies across the nation.

Sector Employability Graph

IT Services 17.45%

IT Product 2.68%

Knowledge Process

Outsourcing9.22%

Hardware

Networking36.57%

Business Process

Outsourcing40.69%

Figure 1: Employability of Engineering Graduates in Different Sectors

The employability of engineering graduates in different sectors is shown in Figure 1. The

following observations can be made:

IT Product Sector: The employability in the IT product sector is exceptionally low, to the

order of 2.68%2. This is because jobs in IT product companies require a strong understanding

of computer programming and algorithms. But the study found that the candidates strongly

lacked the required skills: around 92% of graduating engineers do not have the required

programming and algorithm skills required for IT product companies, whereas 56% show lack

of soft-skills and cognitive skills. One may note that the skills required by the IT product

2Calculated across only those branches that have computer programming as a subject.

17.45

2.68

9.22

36.5740.69

0.00

5.00

10.00

15.00

20.00

25.00

30.00

35.00

40.00

45.00

IT Services IT Product KPO Hardware

Networking

BPO

E m p l o y a b i l i t y

Sectors


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companies at the entry-level are very much a part of the curriculum of engineering colleges,

which is a worrying sign for higher education.

IT Services Companies: The employability in IT services companies is 17.45%. It should be

noted that this has been calculated according to the current hiring philosophy of IT servicescompanies, where the candidate is not expected to already possess the required software skills

or soft skills, but is imparted the training over a period of 3 to 6 months. The hiring criterion

for this industry, thus, is that the candidate should be trainable in technical and soft skills.

This requires both a basic command of language and technical skills, together with requisite

cognitive skills to respond to training in a short period of time. Considering these rather lax

requirements, the fact that only 17.45% of the graduates are trainable into software engineers

within a period of 3 to 6 months, is alarming to say the least.

The research further shows that approximately 54% engineers are rejected because they are

not soft-skill trainable in a short period of time, whereas around 46% lose on technical

trainability.

Apart from focus on core technical skills, technical trainability can be improved by adopting a

quantitative approach to engineering problems. Bridging courses to hone English skills of the

candidates is a definite step toward improving soft-skills trainability.

Small and Medium Sized Enterprises: Whereas large companies invest considerably in

trainings, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) do not find it viable to build training

facilities or invest time in it. They want to hire ready-to-deploy manpower. For them, the

engineering graduates should be able to learn on the job and start contributing effectively as

soon as possible, typically in a month’s time. This requires substantial competence in domain

skills. Whereas these companies do not expect the person to bring in in-depth knowledge of

computer science, the minimum expectation is to be able to write a decent piece of code for a

given problem, and the ability to debug and submit a working program. Such candidates, who

are software-industry ready, are just 3.25%. This explains why SMEs find it so hard and time-

consuming to hire.

If not corrected, this trend is poised to become a major impediment to the growth of

entrepreneurship and IT companies in India. One may recognize that the best economies in the

world are sustained by a strong SMEs sector, which in India is likely to suffer because of the

lack of right skills.


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Knowledge Process Outsourcing Industry: As revealed by the research, the Knowledge

Process Outsourcing industry is likely to find 9 out of every 100 engineers employable.

Highly developed written communication and analytical skills are a must for this sector.

Though most engineers do not exhibit the required competence in English communication(78% do not), a considerable number (56%) miss out on analytical and quantitative skills.

This calls for a fundamental shift in college instruction and assessment methodology, which

should be more inclined to developing analytical thinking and critical reasoning than learning

by rote.

Hardware and Networking Profiles: This sector comprises roles involving technical support

and network management. Candidates employed in this sector manage hardware and networks

within corporations, or carry out servicing roles providing support to consumers. A good

36.75% candidates are employable in the hardware and networking sector, according to the

study. A person trainable in this role should exhibit basic understanding and usage of

computers — both hardware and software — as well as be comfortable in English and exhibit a

problem-solving approach.

Business Process Outsourcing Companies: A large proportion of candidates(40.69%) are

eligible for the BPO industry, both in tele-calling and backend processes. However, graduate

engineers do not form the preferred employable group for these companies due to the belief

that these roles cannot match their expectations, both in terms of remuneration and job

satisfaction.

In summary, there is a long way to go before engineering graduates in India become employable

for various industries and job profiles. Such an economy, with candidates possessing appropriate

qualification but unable to exhibit the right competence, is not only inefficient but socially

dangerous. More focused trainings and feedback through employability assessments at various

times will help improve the scenario.


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II. Employability by Gender

It has been said that the progress of a society can be measured by the condition of its women. This

makes it imperative to study women’s position in the higher education and technical revolution in

India. It is also important to understand whether there is any evidence for the traditional belief

that men make for better engineers!

This section tries to answer two questions:

How many women are opting for higher education in the technical domains in India?

Are men and women equally employable?

a. Gender Ratio in Higher Education

In India, There are 106 males for every 100 females, making the sex ratio 1.06. In contrast, the

sex ration in engineering colleges is 1.96. This shows that a lower proportion of females make it

to engineering courses as compared to males. There could be multiple reasons for this, which are

beyond the scope of the report. Interestingly, India fares much better in gender ratio as compared

to the United States. A 2009 study suggested that the ratio of male to female engineers in USA

was as drastic as 4.61! Among different branches, it was found that computer science and

electrical engineering disciplines had the least number of females.3

3http://it-jobs.fins.com/Articles/SB130221786789702297/Women-Engineering-Graduates-at-15-Year-Low

http://www.engineeringschools.com/women-in-engineering.html

http://it-jobs.fins.com/Articles/SB130221786789702297/Women-Engineering-Graduates-at-15-Year-Lowhttp://it-jobs.fins.com/Articles/SB130221786789702297/Women-Engineering-Graduates-at-15-Year-Lowhttp://it-jobs.fins.com/Articles/SB130221786789702297/Women-Engineering-Graduates-at-15-Year-Lowhttp://www.engineeringschools.com/women-in-engineering.htmlhttp://www.engineeringschools.com/women-in-engineering.htmlhttp://www.engineeringschools.com/women-in-engineering.htmlhttp://it-jobs.fins.com/Articles/SB130221786789702297/Women-Engineering-Graduates-at-15-Year-Low


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Figure 2: Male-Female Ratio across states & Union Territories

* The male-female ratios for Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and North Eastern States have not been

included due to small sample size. Their indicative ratios are 9.88, 5.42 and 4.58 respectively.

The gender-ratio changes with respect to the state of the campus were studied. The MFR (Male to

Female Ratios) are shown in Figure 2.

It may be observed that the southern states have a more balanced gender ratio than their

northern counterparts. This is in line with the population gender ratios across the nation,

where northern India has higher male-female ratio than southern India. Kerala emerges as an

outlier, being the only state having more females than males in engineering colleges.The regional comparison

4 is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Male-Female Ratio across Regions

4 States included in each region are listed in Appendix, Section A.

7.58

4.613.95 3.81

3.12 2.852.48 2.45 1.86 1.85 1.76 1.70 1.56 1.53 1.51 1.44

0.85

0.001.002.003.00

4.005.006.007.008.00

R a t i o

Male:Female Ratio

2.71

1.88 1.88

1.49

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

North East West South

R a t i o

Zone


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An analysis was done to identify the states where the population MFR was not in line with that of

engineering campuses. Such a comparison is necessary to acquire some interesting insights: in

which states, inspite of a lower female to male ratio, more females go to engineering schools; and

for which states, even though the female to male ratio is more balanced, lesser females end up becoming engineers. Given that the population MFR and engineer MFR are quite different in

magnitude, a direct correspondence can’t be hypothesized. However, a high correlation between

population and engineer MFR should indicate that similar causes are responsible for both.

A scatter-plot of engineering population MFR vs. total population MFR (data from Census 2011)

is shown in Figure 4. Engineering MFR vs. Population MFR shows a correlation of a 0.34,

whereas after removing the three outliers, the correlation shifts to 0.58. This shows that the total

population MFR and engineer MFR do have some common variance and probably some commoncauses. But given that the correlation is only moderately high, it shows there are independent

factors influencing the two ratios.

It can be observed that even though Bihar, Jharkhand and Gujarat have a moderate population

MFR as compared to other states, these states possess a very high engineering MFR. This

suggests that for some reason, fewer females become engineers in these states with respect to their

population statistics. On the other hand, Delhi and Haryana, even though they have a moderately

high MFR, have more females becoming engineers. The reasons for such a variance are beyond

the scope of this report, which could be lower education levels for girls, socio-economic

considerations, etc.


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Figure 4: Scatter-Plot of Engineering Population MFR vs. Total Population MFR

b. Employability by Gender

The analysis shows that employability for males and females is almost equal, with the maximum

difference being a single percentage point for IT Services and KPO. The employability of males

vs. females is depicted in Figure 5.

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

0.9 0.95 1 1.05 1.1 1.15 1.2 1.25 1.3

E n g i n e e r i n g M F

R

Population MFR

Sector Males Females Graph

IT Services 17.81% 16.75%

IT Product 2.88% 2.29%

KPO 9.63% 8.41%

Hardware

Networking36.51% 36.69%

BPO 40.57% 40.91%

Figure 5: Employability – Males vs. Females

17.81

2.88

9.63

36.5140.57

16.75

2.29

8.41

36.6940.91

0.00

10.00

20.00

30.00

40.00

50.00


Networking

BPO


Sectors

Males

Females

Bihar +

Jharkhand

Rajasthan

Maharashtra

Delhi

Gujarat

Haryana


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This slight difference in the employability of males vs. females is majorly due to the difference in

Quantitative Ability scores (see Figure 6 for average AMCAT scores of males vs. females). The

35-point difference in scores corresponds to 12 points of percentile difference. Though these

results show the same trends as observed globally, they need to be interpreted from a nuanced perspective, given the debate on the bias of standardized testing scores with regard to gender.

Note that no significant difference in scores is observed in any other modules.

Gender Males Females Difference Graph

English 474 474 0

Quantitative

Ability

505 470 35

Logical Ability 461 459 2

Computer

Programming413 406 7

Figure 6: Average AMCAT Scores – Males vs. Females

Inspite of the equal employability of males vs. females, the ratio of males-females in software

industry is not same as that in campuses. Industry Statistics in 2009 showed an MFR of 2.33 forIT services. This is higher in comparison to the ratio found in engineering campuses. This shows

that fewer proportion of female engineers are employed in the IT industry as compared to males.

The reasons for this — an analysis of which is beyond the scope of the report — could be many,

such as lower proportion of females opting for a professional career; females not being

comfortable with relocation; preference of males by corporations; biases in hiring processes; etc..

In summary, we find that the ratio of male-to-female engineers is 1.96, which is almost twice the

population ratio (1.06), but much lower than that of other countries such as United States of

America (4.61). It was found that states with higher male-to-female engineer ratio also show high

population gender ratio, indicating that both these factors may have common influence/cause.

Finally, the employability of male and female engineers is similar, yet the current ratio of

employed males to females in IT industry is higher than that of the engineering population.

474

505

461

413

474 470459

406

375

415

455

495

535

English Quantitative

Ability

Logical Ability Computer

Programming

M e a n

S c o r e s

Modules

Male

Female


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III. Employability by Region

It is important to understand how employability varies by region. Do the demographic factors of a

region influence its employability? Do certain cities exhibit very different employability patterns

than their state? This section looks at employability percentages by grouping campuses (and

students’ permanent address) by their region, the regions being defined according to different

demographic parameters. In cases where significant differences emerge, an attempt is made to

understand the causes. Very likely, the observation of these differences will prompt other studies

to find the causes for these differences, leading to proposals of intervention.

Herein is studied the employability by tier of city, across states, and the employability variation

between metros and non-metros and some key large cities.

a. Employability by Tier of Cities

It may be argued that colleges located in Tier 1 cities provide better exposure to students. They

may also be the preferred destination for students who have the luxury of choice (and are hence

academically superior) and probably the first choice for candidates permanently residing in Tier 1

cities. Tiers were allocated to cities according to population, with the following benchmark (Table

1):

Tier Population

1 Greater than 25 lakh

2 5-25 lakh

3 0-5 lakh

Table 1: Tier of Cities

For the analysis, the top 100 campuses were removed from the data set, since these have their

own brand presence attracting students from across the country, and are therefore outliers in their

respective cities. Most of these colleges are the IITs and the NITs, which source candidates

through a nationwide exam.

The results of the analysis are presented in Figure 7.


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Figure 7: Employability across Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 Cities

One may observe a consistent drop in employability in all sectors according to the tier of city of

the campus location. Whereas the difference in employability from Tier 1 to Tier 2 is generally

low, the decrease from Tier 2 to Tier 3 city colleges is drastic. Among different sectors, the drop

in employability from Tier 1 to Tier 2 cities is maximum in the IT products and KPO sector. This

shows that when higher-level skills are required (English, in case of KPOs, and technical ability

in case of IT Products), there is a larger variation between talent quality in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities.

On the other hand, requirement of a lower skill-level tempers this difference.

Sector Tier 1 CitiesTier 2

Cities

% decrease

(T1 to T2)

Tier 3

Cities

% decrease

(T2 to T3)

IT Services 17.23% 16.53% 4.06% 12.29% 25.65%

IT Product 2.48% 2.02% 18.55% 1.54% 23.76%

BPO 41.23% 40.38% 2.06% 35.64% 11.74%

KPO 9.02% 7.99% 11.42% 6.13% 23.28%

Hardware

Networking36.93% 36.26% 1.81% 30.77% 15.14%

17.23

2.48

41.23

9.02

36.93

16.53

2.02

40.38

7.99

36.26

12.29

1.54

35.64

6.13

30.77

0.00

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10.00

15.00

20.00

25.00

30.00

35.00

40.00

45.00

IT Services IT Product BPO KPO Hardware

Networking


Sectors

Tier 1 Cities

Tier 2 Cities

Tier 3 Cities


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The employability in different sectors apart from IT Services is quite similar in absolute terms

across cities. This clearly shows that Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities cannot be neglected from a

recruitment perspective. The data shows that at least one out of every six engineering colleges is

in a Tier 3 city. This means that at least 12% of engineers employable in IT Services are in Tier 3cities – an absolute number of approximately 13,000. These candidates could possibly fill up

entry-level hiring needs of several IT Services companies.

Figure 8: Average Scores across Tier1, Tier2 and Tier 3 Cities

The study investigated the skills deficient among students in Tier 3 cities (see Figure 8). Contrary

to popular opinion, English language skills do not create the major difference in employability. It

is rather the quantitative ability and analytical skills, which make these students ineligible for

employment. This points towards better teaching practices through problem solving and analysis.

It is also surprising to see that the difference in ability in Computer Programming and Algorithms

is not too much. Teaching in colleges across tiers of cities though similar, but is inadequate as far

as Computer Programming and Algorithms is concerned.

Average

Scores

Tier 1

Cities

Tier 2

Cities

Tier 3

Cities

Diff. Btw.

Tier 1 &

Tier 2

Diff. Btw.

Tier 2 &

Tier 3

Graph

English 476 467 455 9 12

Quantitative

Ability486 485 459 1 34

Logical

Ability456 456 430 0 26

Computer

Programming405 402 391 3 11

476486

456

405

467485

456

402

455 459

430

391

350

400

450

500

550


Ability


Programming

M e a n S c o r e

Modules

Tier 1 Cities

Tier 2 Cities

Tier 3 Cities


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b. Employability across States

The research looked at the employability percentages according to states where the different

engineering campuses are located. The employability percentage for different states for IT

Services is shown in Figure 9:

Figure 9: Employability in IT Services across States and Union Territories. (Some states omitted due to low sample

size)

The following may be observed through this data:

Looking at the employability across states and UTs, it is observed that employability in IT

services companies is highest in North, followed by East, then West, and then South. Delhi

and Bihar-Jharkhand emerge as states with the highest employability.

Delhi has emerged as an education hub with high standards of education at all levels,

attracting the best minds from across the country. Whereas Bihar-Jharkhand may seem

paradoxical, one may understand this trend by the high self-selection effect. Bihar and

Jharkhand, put together, have around 35 engineering colleges as compared to 70-80

engineering colleges in any similarly sized state. This leads to a fierce competition forengineering education and only the best end up getting into engineering campuses, majority of

which are run by the government. Contrast this with Uttar Pradesh (300+engineeringcolleges),

0.00

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20.00

30.00

40.00


IT Services


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Andhra Pradesh (700+ engineering colleges) or Tamil Nadu (~600engineering colleges),

where engineering colleges are unable to completely fill their seats.5

Explanation: Apart from other factors, it can be hypothesized that just the sheer number of

engineering colleges in a state negatively influences the percent employability. This hypothesis is

inspired by Kenneth Arrow’s idea of higher education being a filter. To check this hypothesis, the

relationship between the percent employability and the number of engineering colleges in each

state was analyzed. A scatter plot between employability percent and logarithm of number of

colleges is shown in Figure 10:

Figure 10: Scatter Plot between Employability Percent and Logarithm of Number of Colleges

Interestingly, a very high correlation of -0.834 was found between IT services employability and

the number of colleges in the state. If the two outliers are removed, the correlation becomes -0.91!

This means that employability falls logarithmically with the increase in number of colleges in a

state. Further, the result is not improved by normalizing the count by population or size of the

5http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article2337603.ece

http://studyplaces.com/articles/411338-1-2-lakh-mba-b-tech-seats-remain-vacant-in-up-technical-institutes

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/engineering-seats-remain-vacant/191073-60-114.html

5

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30

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1 1.5 2 2.5 3

% E m p l o y a b i l i t y i n I T S e r v i c e s S e c t o r

Logarithm (Number of Colleges)

Chattisgarh

Orissa

http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article2337603.ecehttp://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article2337603.ecehttp://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article2337603.ecehttp://studyplaces.com/articles/411338-1-2-lakh-mba-b-tech-seats-remain-vacant-in-up-technical-instituteshttp://studyplaces.com/articles/411338-1-2-lakh-mba-b-tech-seats-remain-vacant-in-up-technical-instituteshttp://ibnlive.in.com/news/engineering-seats-remain-vacant/191073-60-114.htmlhttp://ibnlive.in.com/news/engineering-seats-remain-vacant/191073-60-114.htmlhttp://ibnlive.in.com/news/engineering-seats-remain-vacant/191073-60-114.htmlhttp://studyplaces.com/articles/411338-1-2-lakh-mba-b-tech-seats-remain-vacant-in-up-technical-instituteshttp://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article2337603.ece


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state. The simplicity of the result is indeed intriguing, and shows how adding more engineering

colleges leads to a fall in the percentage of employable engineers.

Even though the number of colleges is a major factor in guiding employability in a particular

state, it does not explain it completely. For instance, even though Tamil Nadu has lower number

of engineering colleges (~600) as compared to Andhra Pradesh (~750), it has a lower

employability percentage (8.33 as compared to 12.73). Similarly, Delhi has more colleges than

Bihar, but a higher employability. Employability for a state is a complex interplay of several

socio-economic and developmental factors. However, this does call for a greater thrust on

improving the quality of engineering education than just the number.

Analysis of IT product sector employability: The IT products employability was analyzed to

find out whether the same trends and hypotheses are valid for this sector too (see Figure 11).

Figure 11: Employability in IT Product Companies across States and Union Territories

The observations are as follows:

It can be observed that the major trends remain similar to those in IT services, though there

are some minor differences.

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Three states, i.e.,Uttarakhand, Kerala and Chhattisgarh, show largely different ranks with

respect to employability in IT services and IT product companies. Whereas Kerala and

Chhattisgarh better their position with regard to IT Product employability, Uttarakhand slips

down. This is strongly indicative of better education within colleges in Kerala& Chhattisgarh.The correlation of logarithm of number of campuses to employability is -0.72,down from -

0.83 in the case of IT services companies. One hypothesis is that whereas the quality of intake

is a major factor in IT services employability, it is tempered by quality of education at

college-level in case of IT Product sector, which requires considerable knowledge of

computer science. The number of colleges being a proxy for intake quality has a lesser impact

on IT product employability, as compared to IT services employability.

Employability in other sectors across states shows similar trends. Their respective trends are

documented in Appendix B.

c. Employability in Metros vs. Non-MetrosThe research analyzed employability of candidates coming out of colleges in metro cities, in

comparison to those in non-metro cities. The general view remains that colleges in metros

produce more employable candidates due to better exposure and education, which explains why

parents often prefer colleges in metros as opposed to others in making an admission decision. The

employability figures based on the analysis are reported in Figure 12:

Sectors MetrosNon-

Metros

%

DecreaseGraph

IT Services 18.87% 16.74% 11.29%

IT Product 2.91% 2.56% 12.03%

KPO 10.41% 8.62% 17.20%

Hardware

Networking37.71% 36.00% 4.53%

BPO 41.88% 40.08% 4.30%

Figure 12: Metro vs. Non-Metro Colleges

18.87

2.91

10.41

37.7141.88

16.74

2.568.62

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Non-Metros


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As it may be noted, even though colleges in non-metro cities have lower employability, the

difference is not too much. Only the decrease in employability in KPOs is much higher, for which

English comprehension and writing skills are very important. This is in line with the earlier

analysis which showed that there wasn’t much difference in the employability of candidates fromcolleges in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities.

Sectors MetrosNon-

Metros

%

DecreaseGraph

IT Services 20.18% 17.63% 12.64%

IT Product 3.85% 2.78% 27.79%

KPO 12.02% 9.25% 23.04%

Hardware

Networking35.97% 36.90% -0.19%

BPO 39.31% 40.89% -0.76%

Figure 13: Metros vs. Non-Metros: Employability by city of permanent residence

In contrast, when the employability of candidates with permanent residence in metros and non-

metros was compared (see Figure 13), the trends came out to be quite different. There is an

appreciable gap in employability for IT product companies, and the gap in employability forKPOs increases further. There are two potential hypotheses to explain this. Firstly, candidates

who born and brought up in metros have better exposure to computers and in particular, computer

programming, and thus they are more employable than their non-metro counterparts. If the

colleges were imparting computer programming education adequately, this gap due to intake

impact should have narrowed. Secondly, English language skills are very important for

Knowledge Process Outsourcing companies, and candidates born and brought up in metros seem

to acquire better English skills due to day-to-day exposure to a larger English speaking

population. This clearly shows that students coming from non-metros are disadvantaged to a

certain extent. Thus, there is a requirement of better school education and exposure to computers

and English to students in non-metros. Secondly, colleges need to improve education

methodology to be able to erase such differences. On the other hand, as noted earlier, there is no

20.18

3.85

12.02

35.9739.31

17.63

2.78

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36.9040.89

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p l o y a b i l i t y

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Non Metros


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merit to the argument that colleges in the metros automatically produce more employable

candidates.

d. Employability in Key Cities

The study also compared employability within students graduating out of different metro cities in

the country. The results are reported in Figure 14.

Figure 14: Employability in different metro cities

The following observations are made:

The trends are similar to those with regard to employability in states. Delhi (North) shows the

highest employability, followed by Kolkata (East) and cities in the West, while the lowest

employability figures were observed among colleges in Southern cities. The skew in

employability is quite high; for instance, the IT product employability in Delhi in as high as 1

in every 9 candidates and as low as 1 in every 200 in Chennai. Even though Bengaluru has

similar IT services employability as compared to other Southern and Western cities, the cityshows much higher employability for IT product companies. This indicates that candidates in

Bengaluru do much better at computer programming and algorithms, even though they show

similar English and cognitive skills. This could be due to better exposure to computer

programming either at home, schools or colleges.

IT Services IT Product KPOHardware

NetworkingBPO

Delhi 39.78 10.91 27.59 53.37 54.78

Kolkata 25.30 4.51 14.98 44.33 47.31

Bengaluru 16.79 2.93 8.62 36.59 40.92

Hyderabad 16.52 1.70 8.28 35.94 40.64

Mumbai+Pune 16.12 1.17 7.45 38.34 42.62

Chennai 8.35 0.53 3.40 26.60 32.19

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The reason for this skew in employability is explained again by the trend in number of

colleges in each of these cities (see Table 2). The proliferation of engineering colleges in

Southern and Western India has brought down the employability figures. In comparison, there

are far fewer engineering colleges both in Delhi and Kolkata. This is despite the fact that the population of Delhi is much more than Southern cities, being comparable to that of Mumbai

(see Table 2).

CityApproximate number of

engineering collegesPopulation

Bangalore 78 5,438,065

Chennai (including

Thiruvallur)84 4,616,639

Delhi 35 12,565,901

Hyderabad 86 4,068,611

Kolkata 54 5,138,208

Mumbai and Pune 14517,277,214

Table 2: Number of colleges and population in major cities

In summary, the study found that employability trends show significant variation with respect to

the location of the campus. Whereas employability percentage was found to be similar in Tier 1

and Tier 2 cities (classified by population), the employability in Tier 3 cities fell significantly.The major gap in skills was observed in quantitative ability and logical reasoning skills, rather

than command of the English language. With regard to employability percent in different states, it

was found that employability decreases logarithmically with the number of colleges in the state

(in sync with Arrow's hypothesis). Also, whereas there was no appreciable difference in

employability of students coming out of colleges in metros and non-metros, there was a

significant difference in employability of candidates born or living in metros, versus the rest. This

clearly shows that candidates who have spent a significant part of their life time in metros get

better exposure to English and computer education, helping them become more employable.

The key learning of this study is that as a Nation, we need to emphasize more on quality than

number of colleges.


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IV. Employability Variance in Campuses

It is known that the quality of intake, education and outcome varies dramatically across the

3,000+ engineering campuses in India. It is pertinent to understand how much variation is there. Is

it that most colleges have similar quality, with a few outliers, or whether there is a large variance?

What are the reasons for these variations? This section looks into such questions.

a. Employability in top-tier campuses vs. the rest.

The study analyzed employability of campuses according to their ranking (as reported in popular

media). Campuses which fell among the top 100 on the list (according to various credible public

surveys) were segregated and their employability was compared with the rest of the campuses.

The results are depicted in Figure 15. The following trends were observed.

(i).The employability for IT product companies falls by four times from 8.44% to 2.17%,

where as the employability in IT services and KPO falls by almost twice (30.95% to

16.32%) and two-and-a-half times (21.69% to 8.22%), respectively. The fall is not so steep

when it comes to BPO and Hardware Networking.

SectorTop 100

Colleges

Rest of

the

Colleges

Graph

IT Services 30.95% 16.32%

IT Product 8.44% 2.16%

KPO 21.69% 8.22%

Hardware

Networking45.05% 35.88%

BPO 47.29% 40.18%

Figure 15: Employability: Top 100 Colleges vs. Rest

30.95

8.44

21.69

45.0547.29

16.32

2.17

8.22

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(ii). Given that the ratio of the number of top 100 campuses to the rest is more than 10, one

can conservatively estimate that more than 70% of the employable engineers for IT product

sector, and more than 80% for IT services and KPO, are in the so-called Tier 2 campuses.

According to current trends, IT product and KPO companies do not source from Tier2campuses, which creates a large artificial dip in the supply of eligible candidates. This is in

line with what was reported in the2009 annual employability report by Aspiring Minds.6

Figure 16: Skill Gap: Top 100 vs. Other Campuses

The study also investigated what skills are lacking in students of Tier 2 campuses (see Figure 16).

There is a gap of 22, 16 and 22 percentile points in English Communication, Logical Ability and

Computer Programming, respectively, whereas the gap in Quantitative ability is 27 percentile

points (see Figure 16). This clearly shows that the maximum effort is required to hone

mathematical skills of the students, whereas consistent effort is needed in other areas as well.

b. Employability in Govt. and Private Colleges

The research also analyzed the difference in employability between government and private

colleges (see Figure 17). Interestingly, an appreciable difference in employability was observed,

with students at government colleges doing much better than those in private colleges. The

6 National Employability Report (Aspiring Minds), 2009

10 20 30

English

Quantitative Ability

Logical Ability

Computer Programming

Percentile Points

M o d u l e

s

Skill Gap Analysis: Top 100 vs. Other Campuses

Percentile Difference


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decrease in employability was around 35.1% for IT services and 58.06% for IT product

companies.

Sector Govt. Pvt.%

DecreaseGraph

IT Services 25.67% 16.66% 35.09%

IT Product 5.64% 2.36% 58.06%

KPO 16.23% 8.59% 47.07%

Hardware

Networking42.61% 36.02% 15.46%

BPO 45.38% 40.30% 11.19%

Figure 17: Employability: Govt. vs. Private Colleges

Figure 18 depicts the difference in skills of students from government and engineering colleges. It

was observed that there is significant difference in skills in all areas, with the maximum gap being

in quantitative ability. This clearly indicates that government colleges attract better students and

probably impart better education as well. This is in contrast to the trends worldwide, where some

of the best institutions (such as MIT and Stanford) are private.

Average

Scores

Govt.

Colleges

Pvt.

Colleges Difference

Graph

English 504 471 33

Quantitative

Ability

541 487 54

Logical Ability 485 453 32

Computer

Programming443 403 40

Figure 18: Average Scores: Govt. vs. Private Colleges

25.67

5.64

16.23

42.6145.38

16.66

2.36

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Networking

BPO


Sectors

Government

Private

504

541

485

443

471487

453

403

350

400

450

500

550

600


Ability


Programming

M

e a n S c o r e s

Modules

Govt. Colleges

Pvt. Colleges


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c. Employability Variance across Colleges

In this section, we study the distributional properties of employability across colleges. The

employability of each college for the IT services industry was determined and arranged in order

of its rank (see Figure 19).

Figure 19: Employability Percentage of Students across Colleges for IT Services Companies

The following observations can be made:

The best of colleges have employability as high as 50%, whereas the bottom 30 percentile

colleges have employability of less than 10%. Around only 35% colleges have employability

more than the average figure of 17%, whereas the majority (65% colleges) has it close to or

lower than 17%. This clearly shows that there are a small number of colleges with very high

employability followed by a high number of colleges with very low employability. Thus, even

though the mean employability is ~17%, the median employability is much lower.

Some simple calculations show that average employability in colleges in the top 30 percentile

(around 750 colleges) is 28%, whereas it is around 12% for the rest of the colleges. This

implies that almost an equal number of employable candidates are there in the top 750

campuses as compared to the rest (see Table 3.Values for IT product companies are also

given). Consider that no IT company in India has a campus recruitment program beyond the

top 750 campuses, which shows that almost half of the employable pool,i.e., around 50,000

employable candidates in the country, is invisible to recruiters.

0

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60

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Rank Percentile

IT Services


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Top 30 percentile campuses

(~750)

Rest of the campuses

(~1750)

IT Services Employability 28% 12%Percent Employable Pool 50% 50%

IT Product Employability 5.81% 0.97%

Percent Employable Pool 72% 28%

Table 3: Top 30 percentile campuses vs. the rest

The following conclusions are drawn:

One may observe that the employability falls drastically toward the beginning, and more

gracefully toward the middle. This clearly shows that there are certain colleges which have

excellent employability; however, other colleges even close in ranking show a drastic drop in

employability. This is in line with the perception that certain colleges, such as the IITs and

state-run colleges, are much better than other colleges, which may ranked just as highly. This

is not a healthy trend, implying that deserving students in these other colleges find themselves

cut off from better opportunities.

To further analyze this hypothesis, the study looked at the employability for the IT product

sector. One would expect to see a steeper trend, since IT product employability is more

strongly influenced by college education quality (rather than just intake) as compared to

employability for IT services companies. The variation is shown in Figure 20.

One can observe that IT product employability falls to about 8% at Rank 10, down from 27%

at Rank 1, which is a fall of three times. On the other hand, for IT services companies, this fall

was only around 1.5 times. Similar trends continue throughout the graph and confirm the

hypothesis that the quality of education falls steeply as one goes down the list of the so-called

top colleges, with close neighbors having substantial differences in quality.


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Figure 20: Employability Percentage of Students across Colleges for IT Product Companies

Some other observations for IT product employability are as follows:

The best of colleges have employability as high as 27%, whereas the bottom 45 percentile

colleges languish at less than 1%.This figure degrades to zero employable candidates for the

bottom 20 percentile colleges. Around only 30% colleges have employability more than the

average figure of 2.7%, whereas the majority (70%) colleges have it close to or lower than the

average figure.

In summary, the study found that the ratio of employability in top 100 colleges versus the rest is

between two to four times depending on the sector. Inspite of this, more than 70% of employable

candidates for any sector are in campuses other than the top 100. Government-run colleges show

much higher employability than private colleges, with skill differences in all areas, including

English, cognitive skills and domain skills. With regard to employability distribution among

campuses, the quality of education falls steeply among the top-ranked colleges, which implies that

colleges that are neighbors in rank have very different quality of education. There are a large

number of colleges with exceptionally low employability: bottom 45 percentile campuses have

less than 1 in 100 candidates employable in an IT product company, and the bottom 20 percentile

campuses have no candidate employable in the IT product sector. Finally, we find that 50% of

employable candidates for IT services companies and 28% of employable candidates for IT

product companies are enrolled in campuses ranked beyond the top 750, thus forming an invisible

pool to most employers in India.

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30

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E m p l o y

a b i l i t y

Rank Percentile

IT Product


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Appendix

A. States included in each region

The report provides various comparisons across regions. For these comparisons, the country was

divided into four major regions: North, East, West and South. The constitution of each of these

regions is given below:

North East West South

Delhi Assam Gujarat Andhra Pradesh

Haryana Chhattisgarh Maharashtra Karnataka

Himachal Pradesh Meghalaya Rajasthan Kerala

Jammu & Kashmir Orissa Goa Tamil Nadu

Jharkhand Tripura

Madhya Pradesh West Bengal

Punjab

Uttar Pradesh

Uttarakhand

Table 4: Categorization of states across different regions


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B. Employability by state

Employability variation of the state of campus residence has been explored in detail for IT

services and IT product companies in Chapter VI. Here, the trends for the Knowledge Process

Outsourcing Sector, Business Process Outsourcing Sector and Hardware and Networking

companies are reported. They follow similar trends as discussed in the chapter, and are presented

here for completeness.

Figure 15: Employability in KPO Companies across States and Union Territories

Figure 22: Employability in Hardware Networking Companies across States and Union Territories

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Figure 23: Employability in BPO Companies across States and Union Territories

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