The study released by Nasscom last week also said 75 per cent engineering graduates in the country would remain unemployed. The revelation could spell doom for Andhra Pradesh and Hyderabad’s status as a hub of talented software manpower, says analysts.
In spite of the thrust given by the state government to increase the employability level of graduates, the situation has not improved at all in around 700 engineering colleges.
Expressing concern Damodar Raja Narasimha, State Minister for Technical Education, said for the last two years as many as 3.2 lakh engineering graduates remained unemployed.
“Another 1.3 lakh students may be added to the backlog this year, as only 6-8 per cent students have been selected in campus recruitment since November,” said the minister.
One of the main reasons for such a gloomy picture is the falling quality of education and the shortage of qualified faculty in the colleges.
“Against the requirement of 22,000 lecturers in engineering colleges, we have only 9,200 and against the requirement of 3,200 professors, we have only 1,100 or even less,” said a member of the apex body of engineering institutes.
Almost one lakh engineering seats remained vacant in 2010-11 in 200 colleges due to the non availability of tutors and political unrest. About 210 such colleges with minimum admissions have bartered their students to other institutions.
Government blames the privatisation of higher education during the Chandrababu Naidu regime as the main reason for the mushrooming of colleges without adequate academic faculty. Andhra Pradesh accounts for 25 per cent of the 2,800 engineering colleges in the country but has only 7 per cent of the qualified academic staff.
A recent survey by state subordinate legislative committee set up by the K Rosaiah government pointed out that the YSR government’s tuition fee reimbursement scheme as another reason for the present crisis.