The ‘Make in India’ push of the Narendra Modi Government can get undone by sagging interest in the core engineering fields of electrical and mechanical streams.

The recently-released National Employability Report indicates that students are not excited to study these subjects and one of the reasons could be the stale curriculum and the age-old teaching methods apart from easy employment opportunities in IT sector.

“For India to become world’s manufacturing hub, we need to lead from the front in our understanding of cutting-edge technologies, knowledge-driven management and implementation capability. There is a need for curriculum revamp and to bring in new teaching methods and technology. The science of manufacturing has moved way ahead but we continue to teach outdated concepts to students,” says Aspiring Minds CTO Varun Aggarwal that released the report based on the analysis of nearly 1.5 lakh engineering students across the country.

“There are several problems with regard to employability in core engineering roles. We need to excite students about these jobs. We need emphasis on the basics, for instance, basic electrical engineering, basic concepts of mechanics and so on. In our analysis, we find, students do not have these basic concepts right,” says Mr. Varun.

Gap in curriculum that failed to reflect the changes in the industry was also a reason for the disinterest shown apart from the craze for IT sector that produces maximum employment and natural inclination for students. The teaching methods and curriculum have remained the same.

A casual attitude from students that they would anyway land in a software company even after completing the core engineering subject is also driving them away from learning the concepts with passion, argues T. Muralidharan, Chairman of TMI group involved in training of engineering graduates. It is a fact that most of core engineering graduates ultimately move to IT sector for better prospects.
Mr. Muralidharan, who is an alumnus of IIT Madras and IIM Ahmedabad, also feels senior faculty in core subjects are reluctant to adopt technology for teaching unlike Computer Science and Information Technology that also attracts younger faculty, who are tech-savvy.

Professor of Mechanical Engineering in Osmania University College of Engineering agrees that untrained teachers in core sectors may be a reason for disinterest among students. Except for university and few top colleges the problem exists in others.