Are We Doing Right?

During last few years of 90’s and early years of 21^st century, there was a big boom in IT industry. It was when internet technology started touching the lives of Indian youth. It was the one way out (relief) for the unemployed middle class youths. Not only people got work to their hands but, also comparatively handsome salary at the end of the month.

Then lot of software training institutions came into existence. Many courses offered by these institutions. Even they had crash courses like, Unix-C-C++ combination, VB-Oracle, Java-Oracle, Mainframes, SAP, Visual Studio, Web Designing, etc...  It was the period when the training institutions made huge money. I remember there was no preliminary qualification asked by these institutions to join these courses. An engineering graduate, a B.Sc., B.Com. and B.A. graduate and a diploma holder every one had privilege to get admission.

Once after the completion of these courses, everyone used to prepare their resume, and start applying through post, email or personal handover at the front office of these companies. There was a time when there was a guarantee of job after completion of any of these courses, with a satisfactory salary to start their career, irrespective of their stream of graduation. Everyone was called engineer. We Indians felt happy.

Looking at this, within half a decade the government gave permission to more number of engineering colleges with a special branch of Information Technology. 

The I.T.  branch in engineering had got huge demand for new generation. It had become talk of the society and has become a status if they or their kids were studying in I.T. branch or in its sister branch (Electronics). It had become path to sure success, a visa to western world and access to sudden money. Even today, in 2013 students prefer I.T. or software to any other branch of engineering.

Though it has huge demand but, now getting a job has become tough even after completing the graduation with distinction scores. It is because of huge completion and cheap labor.  Graduates from any other streams are also equally competing with the engineering graduates and many a time they win the job by compromising a bit on salary part.

This shows that companies are looking at more of skills than intelligence or creativity or invention. Their motto is clear from the beginning of emergence of IT industry, they want to outsource their office jobs and get it done with a skilled and cheap labor.

There is no denial that approximately around 10% of jobs require high end technical knowledge, logic and wisdom, rest 90% jobs can be done by a technically trained labor though we call these people as engineers.

Then obviously a question arises that when these works can be get completed by the trained people then why we need engineers?

Now, rather than cursing the graduates from other streams for bagging these opportunities, we should think that engineering graduates should look at new ways of growth and innovations. Though this suggestion looks veered but, that is the real use of engineering certificate. It is fine if the other stream graduates are getting required training and getting the I.T. jobs. Let them work under these jobs.

Why we are selling our premier minds (first layer cream), technical talent (i.e. engineering students) to work for monotonous jobs? Especially, where there is no innovation, creativity and room for out of box thinking. Is it not just waste of our best minds’ talent pool? Can’t we employ these minds into national and scientific growth?  Can’t we stop some colleges or stop giving permission to new engineering colleges? Cant’s we stop as a society in pushing/forcing students into a limited growth path? And later blame, India cannot pioneer innovations or show new road to technological growth.

On one hand, sure and fixed path to money and materialistic life style has made most of the new generation students lazy, less imaginary and less visionary. On the other hand colleges are becoming money minting and certificate printing machines.

Most of the students just spend their entire student Life in college ruthlessly, carelessly, copying the senior’s / x-student’s projects and recreating the same again in their name and produce as their own project, study only during exams, just for marks and a certificate. Of course, for that no extra knowledge is required. And in reality none want to put their extra effort, because, their career plan is already set. No chance they take risk of choosing another path.

A nation which does not have its own intellectual pool in all streams and all races for growth cannot have an independent existence. A nation which cannot think independent and cannot have its own existence can only be called independent in papers and public addresses but, can never be called truly independent.

Give a thought to this. Find ways to come out of this by giving food to your thought and take actions wherever possible. I insist even government should take required steps in this regard than wasting our future generations' talent just by following the mad race.

There are few more aspects to it. We will discuss it in another article under the title of “Hard Facts of Soft People”.

--K. Kalyan