Higher studies not priority for Indian engineering students
By siliconindia   |   Monday, 25 August 2008, 23:25 IST
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New Delhi: The companies demanding higher degrees for candidates will have to wait. Higher education is not a priority for engineering students in India, despite a lot of new institutions being set up across the country. According to a study by two professors of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B), about 2.3 lakh students graduated in engineering in 2006 but only 20,000 master degrees and 1,000 PhDs were awarded in the same year. Only one percent of B.Tech graduates opted for an M.Tech. and merely two percent of M.Tech graduates opted for PhD. The study named 'Engineering Education in India,' involved higher education institutions including the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Science (IISc). The study suggests that India needs to start a series of initiatives, including partnerships with industries, strengthening existing PhD programs and research facilities. But while in India, many companies are insisting upon higher academic performances of their staff, many U.S companies are just looking for the pure employable talent, no matter what their college scores are. By 2012, Georgia, U.S., will require bachelor's or higher degree for only 20.1 percent of the total jobs, says Georgia Workforce Trends in Brief report, published by the Georgia Department of Labor. Eight percent - the fastest-growing sector of the jobs market - will require some postsecondary education. The remaining 71.8 percent - the majority of which are low-skilled, low-paying jobs - will require no formal education beyond high school, reports reflector.com. However, as engineering is a study discipline that widely thought to be learned via formal education, seekers for this genre have been multiplying each year in India. And women, who used to keep aloof from this subject, are now taking to engineering studies in large numbers, says a recent survey by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India (Assocham). The enrollment of girls in technical institutes in the country has gone up from 22 percent in 2002 to 125 percent this year, with most preferring system engineering and information and communication. The emergence of the knowledge economy has been considered to be motivating more girls to acquire engineering skills.

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