The 0.6 bn Dollar Question

Doesn't it sound shocking for a country of more than 1 bn

people where every son, niece, friend's children seem to be studying computer

science? According to a Nasscom-McKinsey estimate, going by the present trends

and estimates, there will be a shortfall of over 500,000 qualified people by

2010. Of this 70% shortfall will be in the BPO sector.

The problem is of quality and suitability. Only about 25%

of technical graduates and 10-15% of general college graduates are considered

suitable for employment in the offshore IT and BPO industries respectively.

The types of skills required in the two industries differ.

The IT industry needs program and solution architects with varied domain skills.

They are the backend workers with superior analytical and technical skills. In

many cases they need domain skills relevant to the area they work in. The

services sector needs great communication skills and others at the base levels.

But as the industry stretches itself to embrace more knowledge-based services,

the need for domain skills starts increasing. The problems to an extent are

common. And so are the answers.

Waiting for the education system to deliver is not the

solution. For two reasons-one, the governments do not appear to be in a hurry

to do anything about it. Two, you cannot make a child grow by pulling it at both

ends. So, even if we have a great education system in place it will take a

decade for the impact to be felt.

Obviously what is then required is a crash course, as it

was called in my college days. This would typically start a few hours before the

examination and would end just before the paper was distributed.

Let us assume that during the next 5 years, 500,000 people

need to be made ' industry ready'. They could be fresh graduates or people

working in other industries. And that each person would cost Rs 50,000 to get

this 'qualification'. That works out to Rs 2,500 crore or $0.6 bn

approximately. That is about 1.8% of the industry revenue. That is also the

amount, Nimbus Communications bid for cricket advertising rights till 2010.

Should this much money be invested in re-training people so that they can be

absorbed by the industry? And who should spend it? One cannot think of many

options to these questions. Sure-education is not the job of the industry. But

finding resources for its own growth is. And this industry has been riding past

investments in education for stupendous growth. It is also not mandatory that

all the investment should come from the industry. The other stakeholders,

including the 'students', could contribute.

If it is not a money problem then what is it? Maybe the

seeds of potential failure lies in the success of the IT/ITeS industry. It is so

busy growing that it has no time to develop people. In the old days, all good

companies absorbed fresh graduates and made them industry ready over a period of

a year or two. They were paid stipends. Many of those people are running the IT

and ITeS companies today. What stops similar models from working today? 

How to make this gigantic training effort happen? It is

tough, but let us not forget that all companies in IT/ITeS are process driven.

Some of them employ 50,000 people. So they should have the expertise to develop

and deliver 'Get Industry Ready' programs.

That seems to leave only the last thing. 'Will' to do

so. Why is that missing? I have no answers. After all this is an investment. It

will not pay back tomorrow. But it will pay back day after tomorrow.