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Indian software engineers fall short
ST Team
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
India produces a large number of engineering graduates every year. But multinationals find that just 25 percent of them are employable, says a McKinsey Global Institute study.
Microsoft has a large number of Indian software engineers on its rolls. However Microsoft is not happy with the quality of software programmers it is recruiting every year in India.

So, the global technology behemoth does its own internal quality control. “India does not produce enough good computer engineers and those it does are good at theory but not very well equipped to handle the practical aspects,” says Microsoft chief technical officer Craig Mundie.

A sizeable number of engineers recruited by Infosys, which staffs more than 45,000, are civil, mechanical or electrical engineers. Lack of quality computer engineering graduates is forcing companies like Infosys to recruit students from varied engineering disciplines, and then train them in-house to become software engineers. An entry-level, 14-week programme conducted by Infosys’s education and research department is certified by educationists as being equivalent to a BS program in the U.S.

What is the way out then? Way back in 1993, the Swaminathan Committee set up by the All India Council of Technical Education suggested that greater industry participation in the development of technical and engineering education in the country must be emphasized. The Committee advocated imposing a levy in education on the industry, increased government commitments on funding technical education and good tax incentives for engineering education. However the Committee’s recommendations have been forgotten, and engineering institutes continue to mushroom.
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