Will the internships and induction programmes included in the revised curriculum announced by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for engineering courses make the students industry-ready and help improve campus placements?
Campus placements have witnessed a dip in the last few years with many IT companies going slow on fresh hiring owing to various reasons including the shift to automation and their failure to find students industry-ready. Many companies found students lacking in hands-on-training and possessing requisite skills. Hence, the revised curriculum, which has shifted emphasis from theory to practical, making internship and induction programmes mandatory, holds hope for improving placements at engineering colleges, B. Sadashive Gowda, Principal, Vidyavardhaka College of Engineering, Mysuru, observed.
Not only have companies brought down the number of new recruits, they are not even finding even the reduced numbers as the students are not skilled enough. Besides, start-ups, which have proliferated in large numbers particularly in Bengaluru, also need skilled manpower. “But, most recruiters want to know if the students are well versed in artificial intelligence, machine learning, etc,” he added.
From the coming academic year, engineering college students will have to undergo three internships in the industry from their second year. Similarly, induction programmes, which are also made mandatory, will help students understand fundamental concepts of technical education, besides improve language and communication.
Colleges such as VVCE have established incubation centres, where students can launch their start-ups. The college has extended the facility to four such start-ups.
Dr. Gowda said the college has also tied up with smaller companies to train students. Training the students for needs of specific industry was a win-win situation for both the industry and the institution as the software needed for training could prove to exorbitantly expensive when companies buy at commercial price, but will be available at a cheaper price if bought by institutions. “Sometimes, when companies buy the software and train students for about a year, and the student leaves the company, they lose a lot of money spent on the software and training. Hence, the companies tie up with institutions for the training,” Mr. Gowda added.
