Specifically, the survey seeks answers the following three questions:(i) Which skills do employers consider important when hiring new engineeringgraduates?(ii) How satisfied are employers with the skills of engineering graduates?(iii) In which important skills are the engineers falling short?

Analysis of the employers’ feedback show:(i) The specific skills can be grouped into three overall groups of skills: CoreEmployability Skills, Communication Skills, and Professional Skills. Thisgrouping reflects three overlap (latent) skills of the graduates that underlie eachof the specific skills within the 3 skills groups. Further, the skill groupingstructures the analysis and highlights main shortcomings in demand and supply.(ii) Although all three skills are important for employers, Core Employability Skillsand Communication Skills (Soft Skills) are more important than ProfessionalSkills. Soft skills, such as reliability and self-motivated have the largest skillsgaps.(iii)64% of employers hiring fresh engineering graduates are only somewhat satisfiedor worse with the quality of engineering graduates’ skills. The typical employeris only “somewhat satisfied” with the skill set of the newly hired graduates.(iv) The graduates have strong English Communication skills and this is one the mostimportant skills for employability.(v) The graduates lack higher-order thinking skills, such as analyzing, evaluating andcreating. This is unfortunate, because these higher-order skills are moreimportant than lower-order thinking skills. Skills such as Problem-solving andconducting experiments and data analysis have a large skill gap.(vi) Employers predominantly demand the same Soft Skills irrespective of economicsector, firm size and region. However, firms in different regions and economicsector and of different size demand distinct Professional Skill.

Based on the findings above, the following policy recommendations should be taken intoconsideration for the improvement of education at technical and engineering institutions.(i) Address the three skill factors (Core Employability Skills, Professional Skills, andCommunication Skills) when reforming assessment, teaching, and curriculum.(ii) Emphasize Soft Skills(iii)Interact more with employers to understand the real demands from the market(iv) Improve assessment, teaching, and curriculum(v) Customize courses to meet different demands

The NBA, India’s only official accreditation body for engineering education, hasestablished 11 Program Outcomes. NBA is a provisional member of the WashingtonAccord—an international agreement between accreditation agencies for engineering

education for 18 countries. Therefore, NBA’s program outcomes (expected learningoutcomes for graduates) are based upon the internationally agreed set of the skills andknowledge that graduates are expected to possess at the time of graduation.3 The NBAcriteria are:(a) Graduates will demonstrate knowledge of mathematics, science and engineering.(b) Graduates will demonstrate an ability to identify, formulate and solve engineeringproblems.(c) Graduates will demonstrate an ability to design and conduct experiments, analyze andinterpret data.(d) Graduates will demonstrate an ability to design a system, component or process as perneeds and specifications.(e) Graduates will demonstrate an ability to visualize and work on laboratory andmultidisciplinary tasks.(f) Graduate will demonstrate skills to use modern engineering tools, techware andequipment to analyze problems.

(g) Graduates will demonstrate knowledge of professional and ethical responsibilities.(h) Graduate will be able to communicate effectively in both verbal and written form.(i) Graduate will show the understanding of impact of engineering solutions on thesociety and also will be aware of contemporary issues.(j) Graduate will develop confidence for self education and ability for life-long learning.(k) Graduate who can participate and succeed in competitive examinations.Ten out of the 11 NBA Program Outcomes were included in the questions (some in anabbreviated form). Thirteen skills from previous employer surveys, notably from (Kleinke,2006) were added. These were in particular skills often referred to as soft skills or coreskills or employability skills, such as integrity, self-motivation, team skills etc. Furtherthree specific skills were added, namely “Basic computer”, “Advanced Computer”, and“Customer Service Skills”. Lastly, another three skills “Technical Skills (programming)”“Communication in English” and “Entrepreneurship Skills”, were included as per requestof employers.

Skill GapsThis section responds to the third question, “In which important skills are the engineersfalling short?” This section combines the analysis of the importance ratings and thesatisfaction ratings to identify the specific skills that are in high demand (high importance),but satisfaction rates are low. These are the skills gaps that are most urgent to address.We calculate the skill gap as the difference between the importance level and thesatisfaction level. A high skill gap signals that the skill is important and that the graduatesdo not meet expectations. Table 7 presents the skill gaps by skill factor, while Figure 2displays the skill gap sorted by mean scores of importance level in descending order There are skill gaps across the three skill factors. On average, Core Employability Skillscontain a higher level of skills gap (0.98) compared to Professional Skills (0.92) and toCommunication Skills (0.77). Only the skill gap for Communication Skills are statisticallysignificantly different from the two others. Nevertheless, there are important skills gaps inall three skill groups. Hence, there is no overall skill category where the graduatesparticularly fall short. Employers ask for skill improvements across the gamut of skills.Core Employability Skills remains the factor with the largest skill gap. The importance ofCore Employability Skills outweighs the higher satisfaction level, resulting in a higher skillgap in this group of skills. In particular, the largest skill gaps are Reliability (1.22) and Self-Motivated (1.10). We do not have a particular explanation why these two skillsdisplay the highest level of skills gap.Skill Gaps: Institutions are doing very well in developing English CommunicationSkillsThe survey finds that institutions are doing very well meeting the demand for Englishskills and that English communication is a crucially demanded skill. The skill gap inEnglish communication is by far the smallest among all the skills (0.31) (Table 7 andFigure 2). Yet English communication is rated as the most important communication skilland higher than any Professional Skill, Table 4. However, the absence of skill gap does notmean that institutions should not focus on English. The high importance of English implythat engineering education institutions need to continue equipping graduates with a goodcommand of the English language. The importance of English communication foremployability should be taken into account when discussing language of instruction.Several States are discussing the benefits of local language instruction. The governmentof Tamil Nadu, for instance, has recently introduced Tamil as a medium of instruction incivic and mechanical engineering courses. Further, students in some government collegesare allowed to take examinations either in Tamil or in English or in both. The use of locallanguage will remove an important barrier for learning, since poor command of English isa barrier for many students, in particular from rural areas, World Bank (forthcoming).However, the importance that employers attach to English when hiring such also be takeninto account, so that the engineering graduates will be employable upon graduation. Inaddition, the critical comparative advantage of Indian engineers should not be lost during

the course of educational reforms at institutions because the importance of the goodcommand in English has been increasing in both the domestic and international markets.Skill Gaps: Higher-Order Thinking Skills are laggingA closer assessment of the skill gaps tentatively suggest that the skill gaps are largestwithin higher-order thinking skills, and smallest among the lower-order thinking skills. Toarrive at this finding, we map the Professional (cognitive) Skill into the Bloom’s revisedtaxonomy of cognitive skills. This taxonomy hieratically orders the level of cognitiveskills

The average skill gap for higher-order thinking skills is substantially higher 0.97 comparedto 0.77 for lower-order skills, a statistically significant difference at the 1% level. Further,the importance level is higher 3.98 compared to 3.90 (also statistically significant at the1% level). This simple analysis shows that Indian employers demand higher-orderthinking skills. It also indicates that the graduates are better at meeting the demand forlower-order thinking skills, but they fall short in meeting the demand for higher-orderthinking skills. The reasons for demanding higher-order thinking skills are likely to be aresult of increased international and national competition, the pervasiveness oftechnologies in today’s world, the focus on increased quality products and innovation. Asskills acquired in school and workplace become obsolete more quickly in the globalizationera, higher order thinking skills and an ability to learn new and more complex skills areindispensible to respond to accelerating technological change (Riboud and Tan, 2009).While the above is only an indicative results, it is the first empirically-based evidence thatthe Engineering education institutions and system does an inadequate job of developinganalytical, evaluating and creative engineers. The above result highlights a crucial questionfor Indian engineering education; does the typical Indian engineering graduate sufficientlylearn higher-order thinking skills? Or does the education model (curriculum, teachinglearningprocess and assessment) predominantly build lower-order thinking skills, such asremembering and understanding? Answering these questions require a larger employersurvey and possibly a competence assessment of engineering graduates. 12

Summary Analysis of Skill Gaps: The previous sections show that employers are likely toperceive Soft Skills more important than Professional Skills. However, engineeringgraduates with limited and weak Professional Skills are undesirable for employers. Thesurvey results, for instance, show a clear signal to the Problem Solving that is underProfessional Skills. As shown earlier, Problem Solving has the largest gap in ProfessionalSkills and the second least satisfying skill of all skills.Wide gaps can be observed among almost all skills. This is more obvious for higher orderskills, such as Problem Solving that falls in Professional Skills. Further, the mean scoresof skill gaps in Professional Skills are higher than those in Soft Skills, which are 0.91 and0.88 points, respectively. Therefore, the importance of Professional Skills should not bedisparaged.

There is substantial dissatisfaction with the quality of graduates. 64% of employersare only somewhat satisfied or worse with the current engineering graduate skills. Thisconfirms the finding of a number of other surveys showing that the skills set of freshengineers is inadequate. Although, there are always caveats when comparing satisfactionsurveys internationally, we find that Indian employers are less satisfied with theirengineers compared to US employers. Obviously, the dissatisfaction suggests that renewedefforts are necessary to raise the skill set of engineering graduates in India through animprovement in the quality of engineering education. We particularly recommend thateach engineering program explicitly states and measures the desired learning outcomes(the skill set of their graduate). The accreditation agency, NBA, in particular could have atremendously important impact if it increased the weight of graduates’ learning outcomescompared to other input-oriented accreditation criteria (such as classroom and curricula).

All three skills factors are important- both Core Employability Skills, CommunicationSkills and Professional Skills are important. Engineers that are in high demand possessall three skills sets. Engineering education programs therefore have to put in place acomprehensive quality upgrade of their programs.However, while Professional Skills remain important, employers consider Soft Skills(Core Employability Skills and Communication Skills) the most important skills.

Employers look for engineering graduates who show integrity, are reliable, can work wellin teams and are willing to learn.Further, employers across India ask for the similar set of soft skills. Irrespective of thesize of the company, the economic sector, or the region, the above Soft Skills (integrity,reliability, teamwork and willingness to learn) remain the important ones.The policy implication is the need to improve the Soft Skills of graduates. This could comeabout by: (i) Colleges and teachers recognize that Soft Skills are important and include softskills as part of the desired learning objectives that teachers should foster in their students.Engineering education is not just about technical knowledge and applicability; (ii) TheNational Accreditation Board could enhance the importance given to soft skills in theProgram Outcomes; For example, NBA does not explicitly include “team working skills”as an expected skill for an engineering graduate; (iii) The teaching-learning process couldbe adjusted to include more project-work in teams and possibly received grades as a team;and (iv) Introduce or scale-up specific courses providing students with opportunities toenhance their English skills, communication skills or other forms of Soft Skills, forexample through finishing schools (courses for graduating students focusing on specificskills in high demand).The survey finds that colleges are doing very well meeting the demand for Englishskills. The skill gap in English communication is the smallest among all the skills. YetEnglish communication is rated as the most important communication skill and higherthan any technical skill. Although we understand the advantages of teaching in a locallanguage, we recommend caution when considering changing the language of instruction

from English to a regional language, because the change may put graduates from locallanguage programs at a significant disadvantage at the job-interview.Graduates seem to lack higher-order thinking skills (analyzing, evaluating andcreating). The employers think that graduates are relatively strong in lower-order thinkingskills (knowledge and understanding), but fall short when it comes to the more complextasks such as application of appropriate tools to solve a problem, and analysis andinterpretation. Employers are less than “Somewhat satisfied” with these skills. Further,these higher-order thinking skills are the most important Professional Skills. In short,memorizing textbooks for examinations is not a skill appreciated by the employers. Thisraises a question of fundamental importance, whether the Indian engineering educationsystem overly trains students to memorize science and engineering knowledge, withoutadequately emphasizing the applicability, analysis and out-of-the-box thinking thatemployers look for. The Indian engineering firms increasingly require more analytical,adaptive, and creative engineers to upgrade the country’s infrastructure, to respond toclimate change and compete for higher value-added IT-orders on the global market.Our recommendations to improve higher-order thinking skills are following. First of all,we recommend that the question be further examined and debated given the importance.Secondly, if the finding is true, which several qualitative studies suggest, major initiativesare required to reform the system: (i) reshape assessment methods, especially exams at thelarge affiliating universities, to assess higher-order thinking skills and not measurememorized knowledge. This would require institutions to focus on learning rather thanmemorization and mere understanding. In order to do so, curricula should be designed in away where students learn how to abstract out complex and practical issues within limited

time; (ii) reform curricula to increase the share of tasks where the student or a team ofstudents lead their own problem identification, experimenting, and solving usingengineering knowledge and methodologies; (iii) promote teaching-learning sessions wherestudents are actively learning and developing their own analytical and evaluating skills ascompared to simply listing and taking notes. This would most likely require significantlyincreased academic autonomy of institutions and substantial professional development ofthe teacher force.Employers ask for different Professional Skills depending upon their economicsectors, the firm size and the region. To illustrate, IT companies, in general, demandcreativity and strong system design skills while the knowledge of mathematics, science,and engineering are less important. On the other hand, the infrastructure firms prioritizegraduates with strong ability to use modern tools and the knowledge of mathematics,science, and engineering, but focus less on creativity and system design skills.This leaves an important role for institutions to prepare their graduates to meet the demandfor skills from different sectors. Institutions therefore have to increase their interactionwith various kinds of employers. Hence, the institutions should customize programoutcomes to meet the specific demand. Further, extra-curriculum activities such asinternships and involvement of institutions with community would also help students todeepen the understanding of demanded skills and respond well to particular demandedskills.

The evaluation has been done across seven parameters—governance, curriculum, faculty, infrastructure, services, entrepreneurship and placements—each consisting of specific sub-factors. This report is a compendium of the analysis conducted to understand: i. how far the engineering institutes have been successful in providing demand-based, industry-responsive education; ii. how well these institutes are equipped to produce talent to meet market requirements; and iii. the extent to which they are connected with the industry to get inputs on future challenges in the market

Case Study Developing market-relevant and consistently- updated curriculum Bannari Amman Institute of Technology A strong curriculum has both theoretical and practical elements that ensure that the students are not only academically qualified but also trained in practical skills relevant to the market. From an input perspective, some of the factors that determine the relevance of a curriculum include the number of courses that received amendments from industry experts, the number of guest seminars and lectures that are conducted on campus and the number of industry members actively contributing to the functioning of the institute’s committees and the board of governors. At the Bannari Amman Institute of Technology (BIT), for each of the five course disciplines offered, there are two members from the industry represented on each of its committees, including the Governance Council, Board of Studies, Academic Council and Standing Committee of the Academic Council. In addition to these industry experts, selected members from among the college’s alumni pool are invited to be a part of its Board of Studies. The college also organises guest lectures by industry experts. In 2011-12, the college organised about 83 guest lectures—the most among the top seven colleges surveyed. The Academic Council of the college makes the necessary changes to the curricula based on inputs from all these sources. In the academic year 2011-12, as many as 42 courses were amended. Of these, 18 received additional content, namely new chapters, more practical assignments and mandatory industry visits. Furthermore, the content of 24 courses was changed to make them more industry-friendly. The college also added three new courses to its electronics and communications engineering discipline, including System Design with FPGA, Automotive Electronics and Embedded systems, as well as three new courses to its computers and IT discipline on mobile operating systems and embedded systems to meet the growing requirement of these skills in the industry. BIT also offers value-added courses such as Embedded Systems, Illumination Engineering, Computers Networking Virtual Instrumentation, CISCO CCNA, Macromedia Flash, PL/SQL Programming, Multimedia and Animation, Java Certification, CISCO Certification, Web Design and Analysis, and Personality and Soft Skills Development. Part of the credit for BIT’s steadily increasing placement rates goes to the change in curriculum. From 338 job offers made on campus during the academic year 2009-10, the numbers increased to 670 offers after the changes in the curriculum came into effect during the academic year 2011-12. Moreover, these changes also ensure that students who wish

to continue with their education are also better prepared to appear for the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) and Graduate Record Examinations (GRE).

Case Study Driving placements through a collaborative process College of Engineering, Pune One of the most important measures of a successful institution that has market relevance is its placements, because this aspect represents the industry’s response to the institution’s efforts to develop an employable workforce. The number of students offered jobs through campus placements during 2001-12 is the main parameter that determines how successful an institution has been in developing industry-demand based, employment-ready workforce that is relevant to the market. With approximately 818 job offers made by 104 companies in a year, the College of Engineering, Pune, (CoEP) has the highest placement record among the top seven institutes for 2011-12. Among their more significant achievements, their placement records include 364 students recruited by Cognizant Technology Solutions in a single day. To ensure the continuity of this trend, CoEP is working with training and placement officers in 40 other institutes to implement a ‘Day 1’ placement model for the IT sector. This is mutually beneficial as it provides recruiters with a common campus for bulk recruitment and ensures that the institute is allowed to present its entire batch of eligible students to the visiting companies. CoEP owes its placement success to a variety of reasons, most significantly to its Training and Placement department, which comprises officers and student representatives who handle training and placements. In addition to providing students with training and support for job interviews and group discussions, the department also ensures that all the students at CoEP are provided with finishing school treatment, which contributes to their all round development. The department’s placement efforts are further supplemented by the presence of industry personnel on its boards and committees, including its Governing Board, who provide inputs to CoEP’s syllabus, contribute to infrastructure, give guest lectures and teach courses, which ensures that students are industry-ready. Lastly, the high placement rate for 2011-12 can be attributed to the institutes’ vast number of clubs that aim to bridge the gap between the industry and academia by encouraging industry-student interaction through project development, industry events, educational workshops, training workshops and field visits. Some of CoEP’s more innovative clubs include the Robot Study Circle, which is the robotics club of CoEP that conducts workshops for students and participates in the annual ‘Robocon’; E-Cell - the Entrepreneurship Club, which organises seminars by eminent business personalities; the Satellite Club, which aims to improve communication in the coastal areas and is currently working on building a pico-satellite in collaboration with industry experts; CoFSUG, the CoEP Free Software Users Group,

which aims at propounding the free software philosophy not just within CoEP but in other colleges as well and the oldest technical club of CoEP, the HAM Club, which conducts workshops in CoEP as well as in other colleges and provides the technical link during the college events. These initial industry interactions convert to full-time job opportunities as they ensure that students are better equipped to enter the workforce.

Case Study Supporting and facilitating innovation PSG College of Technology Innovation helps mobilise capability, harness creativity, create value and drive growth. Supporting innovation involves not only encouraging entrepreneurial activity but also maintaining mutually beneficial interaction with industry. It enables students and faculty to access market expertise and ensures that their research is academically relevant, can be leveraged commercially through technology transfers, and is secured through patenting. The ability of a college to support and facilitate innovation can be measured through three major channels—by the number of companies that provide financial support to research cells and development centres, the number of companies that provide mentoring, teaching support and research collaboration and the number of industry-sponsored research projects assigned to the institute. Among the top seven colleges surveyed, PSG College of Technology holds the record for the highest number of companies funding and mentoring its faculty and students. Between 2007 and 2012, as many as 22 companies provided entrepreneurial support through either funding or mentoring incubatees. Additionally, during the same period, the industry financially supported 23 of the college’s research centres and units. The funding is always project-specific and a majority of it flows through the Centre for Sponsored Research. This was established in 1989 and serves as the vital link between the industry and the college. As a result of this interaction with industry, 60 research projects were assigned to the college between 2007 and 2012. In an effort to provide an atmosphere conducive to innovation and entrepreneurship, the college established PSG-STEP (Science and Technology Entrepreneurial Park) in collaboration with the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB) in 1984. In addition to infrastructural support, the park offers students a complete range of incubation facilities, including specialised mechanical, IT and electronics incubation centres to help formulate business plans and develop prototypes. Since it was established, STEP has incubated 79 entrepreneurs and currently supports 28. Another testimony to the industry’s acknowledgement of the institute’s innovation capabilities is the fact that the college was approached by the Society for Bio-Medical Technology (SBMT) in 2003 to build a prototype of a ventilator that could be used at high altitudes. With inputs from the National Institute for Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, PSG modified and improved the existing prototype, and in 2007, developed an indigenous critical healthcare ventilator— Inventa—designed to meet the needs of the Indian healthcare system. Once Inventa was approved for medical use, the technology transfer was made to Pricol Medical Systems. Inventa is currently awaiting a patent. Based on its success with

Inventa, the college is now working with industry experts to develop pediatric ventilators.