Finding an internship turns a daunting task for colleges

HRD Ministry makes 3 internships mandatory for students

August 16, 2017 12:57 am | Updated 01:00 am IST - HYDERABAD

The economic theory of ‘demand-supply gap’ is now haunting the field of engineering. More so, after the recent announcement of the HRD Ministry that three internships should be made mandatory for engineering students.

As of now engineering colleges are struggling to find at least one internship for its students due to reluctance from the industry and with three likely to be made mandatory, the colleges have a daunting task on their hands.

“It is a big challenge,” admits V. Uma Maheshwar Rao, Mechanical Engineering professor and placement officer of the OU College of Engineering. The OUCE makes it mandatory for all its students for an 8-week internship after the third year and despite its reputation and quality of students, it faces difficulty in finding suitable internships.

Similar is the predicament of College of Engineering of JNTU-Hyderbad (JNTUH), another reputed college. JNTUH Vice Chancellor A. Venugopal Reddy too admits the volumes actually are huge to be accommodated. The JNTUH students too have to undergo 8-week internship and submit a mini project. Providing them a place in the industry is not a big issue as number of students in the university colleges is small.

However, as the VC of JNTUH that has about 160 engineering colleges affiliated to it, he feels accommodating large number of students will be quite difficult, but some method has to be worked out to fulfil the need. Though about 50,000 students get admitted into engineering courses in the JNTUH every year, about 30,000 students actually move to final year and all of them have to do an internship.

Nearly 90% of those study in the JNTU affiliated private colleges and most of them somehow manage the internship certificate than actually doing it. “The industry doesn’t support our students. Though the industry wants industry-trained graduates it is reluctant to give internships,” argues placement officer of a private college unwilling to be quoted.

Industry, however, has its own issues, particularly with the numbers with Telangana having one of the highest number of engineering students on rolls. Shantanu Paul, CEO of TalentSprint, a skills training organisation suggests that Government should consider the time spent in private organisations like theirs should be treated as internship to overcome the problem. He says China makes it mandatory for students to work for a year in an industry as interns before they are recruited and it can be adopted here as well.

Professor Venugopal Reddy feels that instead of doing all the three internships in the core area, the colleges can look for internships in developing managerial skills, entrepreneurial skills, leadership skills, communication skills apart from technical skills. “This is one way of overcoming the shortage of internship availability.”

The biggest victims of this shortcoming in the process are the students. Most students don’t get internships and those who get are not satisfied with the kind of work they end up doing. Some good private colleges, however, are an exception like the Srinidhi Institute of Science and Technology (SNIST), says Spandana, an Electronics student.

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