Huclear Energy

Here is whats in front of us: a shortage of half a million

software professionals by 2010. This, if not fulfilled, can cost the country

about $ 6bn worth of IT services business, according to Nasscom. Grim

prediction, but that really is the state of affairs.

And thats why the efforts to hire fresh graduates and train

them are gaining ground. Intensive training, and over longer durations, is being

provided to equip them with the IT and soft skills needed for business.

Currently, the focus seems to be on science and math graduates for software

services. Hiring graduates is a way to tackle the manpower crunch, but may also

be a way to eventually cut costsbecause the poaching route can only increase

salaries to unaffordable levels.

Tata Consultancy Services has a program called Ignite, an

article on which was carried in the Dataquest, Sep 15 2007 issue, in which

science and math graduates are put through seven months of training, which

includes work on live projects as well. The pilot project with 500 graduates has

been completed, and TCS is planning to keep this up. Wipro, with its Wipro

Academy of Software Excellence started this with BSc, BCA and BCM graduates, way

back in 1995. Apart from training, the students also get the chance to go for an

MS program from BITS, Pilani. Many of the other big names have similar programs.

But what about the smaller companies? Not all have the money or

resources to put fresh grads into several months of training. No doubt many of

those trained will move to other companies over a period of time. But the hire,

train and lose philosophy can work only for so long. To that extent it is a

national problem and not one which can be solved by a few big players virtually

venturing into the business of training.

So, are the engineers getting shortchanged with all this? On the

face of it, it would look like that. But for now, the proportion of graduates

getting hired is not huge. It is barely 10% of the new hires for TCS currently

and could grow to 15% by next year. But, over time if the quality of work and

productivity does not suffer, the spate of campus recruitments in engineering

colleges and good engineers sporting multiple job-offers by their seventh

semester, could see a drop.

That maybe actually a good problem to deal with. Good engineers

would still get absorbed, and they would be hired for work that brings far more

business value. India would be able to develop better software and do more

complex projects by having the right talent at the right places. This would, of

course, take a while happening.

Another way to increase the funnel size is to look at graduates

beyond the science and math streams. There is really no reason why they cannot

be trained if they manage to clear the basic qualitative and quantitative tests.

Our educational system is fundamentally marks-driven, and not talent-driven, so

there should be more trainable talent out there. And if we were to scout the

rsums of software professionals currently working in IT companies, we would

come across many, many software professionals who are arts or commerce

graduates.

We may have scores of graduatesprofessional and

non-professionalgraduating every year. The dearth of manpower is being felt

across all verticalshospitality, retail, healthcare, pharma, aviation, and so

on. It is certainly the right time to rethink our education system so that each

students talent and capabilities are recognized and made productive. I am

sure that there are efforts being made in this direction. But, sadly, they do

not seem to be too visible.

Bright minds that can take India to the very top are there, just

beyond our mind-blocks. These are as important as having nuclear energy.

The author is editor-in-chief of CyberMedia, the publisher of Dataquest.





He can be reached at shyamm@cybermedia.co.in