The Government of India is on an aggressive path to become third largest economy of the world by 2030. While 'Make in India' remains the flagship initiative in this direction, all other development programs like Digital India, Smart Cities, Skill India, Housing for All and Start Up India seek to complement it. They collectively envision India as a high-functioning economy focused on industry, innovation and entrepreneurship; the promotion of investor confidence; job creation; the development of infrastructure; and achieving total digital connectivity. However, handling the large number of youth in the country remains one of the biggest challenges and it seems like there are not much effort has been taken to equip the young generation with necessary skills to benefit from these new opportunities.
This year, when A New Delhi-based employment solutions company, Aspiring Minds looked into the employability of specialised and new careers that are available to engineers, other than core IT and software roles, it revealed that less than 8 per cent of Indian engineers are employable in core engineering roles. According to this report, 97 per cent of graduating engineers want jobs in either software engineering or core engineering and only 3 per cent have suitable skills to be employed in software or product market while only 7 per cent can handle core-engineering tasks. Now, this is a serious issue that needs to be addressed by the country's technical educational establishments, which are releasing around 1.5 million into the job market every year.
Considering the recent developments in the Indian political landscape, a 'surgical strike' may not be a feasible solution to revive the higher education in India from the dismal state. However, few institutions in the country produce highly employable engineers and if the rest can follow their path, eventually, we can definitely change our status from a developing country to a developed country. Under the title, '25 Best Colleges to Hire From, 2016' this issue of Silicon India Education focuses on institutions, which are preparing students for a successful career after graduation. On the Cover, we feature, WOW Kids, a Goa-based preschool chain that offer women in the country a hassle free way to become entrepreneurs.
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