IIT, B. Tech, Engineering and Job Security - Big Corporate Lies

By- Shariq Khan.

It's that season again. Students have passed their higher secondary examinations. IIT JEE 2015 results are just out and a mad race is on to beg, borrow, steal and/or do whatever else it takes to get a seat in IITs and NITs. The most interesting detail of this race is that students are seldom the runners; their parents do all the running for them.

These parents run hard with the belief in mind that a B. Tech degree will assure their kids of a high paying job. Ironically, many of these parents are art or management graduates themselves. They are earning well enough. They raised their kids without any financial problems. Regardless, their children will be, according to them, 'losers' if they fail to get an engineering degree.

Pink Floyd's 1979 hit "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" very much describes India's engineering education today - A factory churning out mass-produced labor for use by other factories.

Having been through the same phase and having survived it valiantly (with battle-wounds suffered in form of my parent's disappointment), I take it upon myself to check whether B. Tech really promises so much as the parents believe it does.

Is it really true that engineering promises a comfortable career for every B. Tech aspirant? Should everyone abandon their personal aspirations for that job security? Is their no money in any field other than engineering? These are some questions I have sought to answer in this article.

Number Of Students Increasing But Jobs Getting Fewer

After compilation of results of the research done with the help of Arunima Pandey, a surprising conclusion is that, statistically, as the number of students taking up B. Tech goes on increasing every year, the average salary offered to the graduating students decreases.

The number of jobs being offered to these students is decreasing as well. In the year 2013, the IT industry hired 50,000 fewer engineering graduates compared to the previous year. The decline in jobs continued into 2014.

Only 12 companies registered with IIT Bombay for the final campus placements till October 2014 compared with 45 at the same time the previous year. Even more shocking is the fact that average salary fell from 9 lakhs to 5 lakhs.

More students are taking up B. Tech every year but number of jobs offered to the graduating students is declining constantly.

This decline in average salaries offered to engineering graduates and the decreasing number of job offers made throws light on the sad condition of engineering in the country.

Uninterested Students Ending Up Unfit For Employment

The reasons can be put on a ladder, one leading to the other on a simple analysis. A more detailed analysis shows them to be interconnected and parallel. Nevertheless, the first in the series is the quality of these engineering graduates. Aspiring Minds' National Employability Report labels 83% engineering graduates as "unfit for employment".

Speaking about the findings of the National Employability Report, CEO of Aspiring minds said

“The low employability among engineering graduates is a cumulative outcome of poor education standards and higher demand of skilled employees, creating a drastic skill gap in the country.”

There is much more to it. This foundations for this drastic unemploymabily in the engineering graduates are laid when parents position themselves on the starting block to the run that mad race for getting their students enrolled into engineering colleges. Most of these parents do not consult their students before running the race. As a result, painters, writers, debaters, architects, illustrators and a mad variety of students end up in engineering courses. These students make up the 83% mentioned above.

The biggest problem is that the reality and the vision of engineering continue to be poles apart. If the numbers are stacked up against engineering, jobs are decreasing, salaries going down, why is it most of India's population believes engineering guarantees job security?

Corporates make them believe it. And corporates keep reinstating it.

Creating a Never-Ending Supply Of Underpaid Labour

With the number of engineering colleges on an almost exponential rise someone has got to be profiting. And if it is not the engineers, it has to be the employers. When more and more parents will force their students into taking up engineering, the employers will be able to have a larger lot to pick from. This competition enables companies to lower salaries.

The stress on importance of B. Tech and IITs is creating a never-ending supply of unskilled labor ready to be exploited by corporates.

Exploiting the situation further, the number of jobs goes on decreasing, making the competition ever more uglier. The end result is corporates need to pay lesser for an a replenishing supply of laborers desperately needing jobs. What the corporates can do with that can be left to the reader's imagination.

Campus Placements And Record-Breaking Packages - Building The Mirage

With the reality of the situation now exposed, this is what is on your mind - "What about those record-breaking and jaw dropping placements by Facebook and Microsoft and IBM and Dell and more software companies. Go back to the IIT Bombay average salary info, that is released by IIT Bombay Heritage Association themselves, and you should start reading between the lines.

How many people get that amazing 2 crore job? 1. How many fight for it? Around a 1,000 at every IIT. Around 200 do not get jobs. The 799 that do end up with jobs bordering the 3 lakh mark. In 2009, the average salary at IIT Delhi was 5.2 lakhs.

Time To Explore New-Avenues

As long as parents continue to get fooled by this corporate lie, young minds will keep on becoming a part of 'surplus' labor resource for software and manufacturing companies. These two sectors combined hire around 50-75% of the engineering graduates every year. Instead of subjecting their children to zombification, it is about time parents allow them to build a career out of what they are skilled at. That will solve the problem of educated yet unskilled labor and ensure a happy and in most cases, well paid life. So, if your IIT JEE 2015 Results have just come out and you are uninterested in engineering, gather the courage to stand up for yourself.

With Inputs by Arunima Pandey.