Communications - December 2008

in most engineering and IT colleges, the curriculum in such colleges has remained unchanged during the last two decades. For example, grades are still determined by only a final examination and not by grading intermittent tests, laboratory work, or homework assignments, and the final examinations only test students’ memory rather than their creativity or ability to think independently. Therefore, students often forget the basics related to microprocessors, Internet Protocol, or the Java language by the time they graduate.

In addition, while the Indian IT exports industry has a severe need for students to have “soft qualifications” (such as proficiency in spoken and written English and the ability to manage projects efficiently), this education system does not provide any such courses. Hence, it is not surprising that a recent study by the strategy consulting firm McKinsey and Company ( www.mck- insey.com/mgi) indicated only 25% of engineering graduates would have the requisite qualifications to be employed in the Indian IT exports industry. Those who do not possess such qualifications either work in the domestic IT industry or change their careers altogether, thereby earning half to two-thirds of what they would have earned otherwise.

Clearly both the public-funded and the private-funded education programs are inherently inadequate, and even combined would not be able to meet the burgeoning demands of the Indian domestic and exports industries. With this in mind, the three initiatives described in the following paragraphs have gained momentum during the last decade.

Realizing the Indian college system (which was primarily government funded) was unable to provide much IT training, in 1981 two entrepreneurs started an IT training college, NIIT, which provided supplemental tutorials and training classes. During 1998–2008, NIIT grew enormously and resulted in the formation of a supplemental IT training industry in India, which provided 3. 2 million student-course units and had approximately $610 million in revenue in 2007. These training colleges provide short-term courses such as Java, C++, SQL, SQL database, and .NET to corporate clients who send their employees for supplemental training; a course typically costs between $75 and

many it export
companies in
india have created
their own training
institutes and have
begun training new
employees.

$300 per student. Long-term courses have durations of three years and cost between $2,500 and $3,500 per student. Most students enroll in their long-term courses while very few working people enroll in evening or weekend classes. Also, most students who enroll in long-term courses are also concurrently pursuing undergraduate or graduate programs. Finally, most of these training institutes provide a job guarantee for students enrolled in long-term courses and also have partnerships with banks to provide five- to seven-year loans.

During 1998–2000, when the Indian IT industry was experiencing unprecedented growth due to the dot-com boom and the Y2K problem, Indian central and state governments established Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs), mainly as public-private partnership institutions.^b The main goal of these IIITs is to provide education at the master’s and Ph.D. levels although some of them are also providing undergraduate education.

Currently, there are eight IIITs in India that graduate approximately 3,000 students every year, and the Indian government has announced the creation of another 20 during the next five years with the goal of producing at least 20,000 master’s and Ph.D.s every year. Furthermore, faculty members are likely to be given competitive salaries and each IIIT will have the autonomy to decide its own salary structure so as to compete with private institutes and multinational corporations. For each IIIT, the Indian government would provide 50 to 150 acres

b For example, the chairman for IIIT Bangalore is Narayana Murthy, who is the cofounder and former chairman of Infosys.

of land and approximately $25 million in seed funding and would have only a minority representation on the board. Private companies have been playing a major role in providing ongoing finance, faculty, and most importantly, governance. Furthermore, the collaborating private organizations would be requested to send their experienced employees as visiting faculty members and more faculty-exchange programs with universities abroad are being envisioned.

Many IT export companies in India have created their own training institutes and have begun training new employees. For example, Infosys intends to spend $170 million in training and Wipro has its own training campus where it can train more than 5,000 employees simultaneously. Overall, Evalueserve estimates the Indian IT industry may ultimately spend approximately $1.1 billion—or about 3% of the revenue it earned—during 2008–2009.

Some of the key programs started by Indian IT companies include a seven-month program, Tata Ignite, wherein Tata Consulting Services would train science and mathematics graduates (with three-year degree courses) to become software professionals and then employ them; Campus Connect launched by Infosys in May 2004; Mission10X launched by Wipro Technologies, which is trying to promote changes to current teaching-learning paradigms, will include 3,000 faculty members in 2009 and 6,000 faculty in 2010; Satyam Entry-Level Engineering Development (SEED) program launched by Satyam, which is a four-month training program for entry-level engineers who will be eventually employed by Satyam; and the establishment of approximately 100 Centres of Excellence (CoE) jointly by HCL Infosys-tems and Microsoft, which will provide training and certification in Microsoft technology to 50,000 students.

As I’ve described in this column, the process of IT education in India continues through its chaotic and lumbering evolution. Nevertheless, in spite of its fits and starts, this process seems to be progressive, and by 2016, India will have the second-largest IT labor force in the world that is likely to be only 20%–25% smaller than its U.S. counterpart.