95% of engineers have poor English

Look at what The Economic Times has to say in its August 7 2015 issue:

According to AICTE, out of the nearly eight lakh BE/BTech students graduated the previous year, only less than half got jobs through campus placement. The real reason for not getting the jobs is poor English skills.

The ET further reveals that a study has found that an overwhelming 97 per cent of engineers in the country cannot speak English, required for high-end jobs in corporate sales and business consulting. Also, as per the report based on the study, about 67 per cent of engineers graduating from colleges in India do not possess spoken English skills required for any job in the knowledge economy.

This is not just in the smaller colleges and institutes. Even the prestigious IITs and NITs face this challenge, going by ‘The National Spoken English Skills of Engineers Report’, conducted by Aspiring Minds. Understandably, the number of students who are weak in English communication skills in the IITs and NITs is far less than in other private and government institutions.

Also, the engineers in the big metro cities are better with their spoken English skills than those in the smaller cities and towns.

The Economic Times quotes Gautam Biswas, director, IIT Guwahati as saying that the college gets students from different backgrounds and regions, and they are mostly not comfortable with English. Quite a few students appear for the joint entrance examination in their mother tongues. It, then, becomes very difficult for them to follow the curriculum.

The reason, mainly, lies in the undue importance given to science subjects, like mathematics, physics, chemistry, and so on. They lose focus the soft skills, like English language generally, and in particular, polite expressions, appropriate body language, correct pronunciation and other voice quality skills, proper etiquettes, and so on.

Varun Aggarwal of Aspiring Minds tells that recruiters and HR managers around the world report that candidates with above average English skills stand out from the crowd and earn 30-50 per cent higher salaries than similarly qualified candidates without English skills. He says, the trends in India are no different, with English fluency being one of the key qualities recruiters look for during the interview.

The ET concludes that English is the global language of business, and indeed every other enterprise. In a globalised economy, the situation is unlikely to change in the near future. Therefore, proficiency in English must be seen as a necessary skill, and not some fodder for a post-colonial culture debate. The new economy is amply incorporating Indian languages, with the user base for mobile phones and the internet galloping away every year. So there is no need to worry about non-English languages being left in the lurch. Engineers, and indeed other professionals, must load themselves with the English ‘software’. It is nothing short of an upgrade.

Now, this maybe old hat, but its relevant even today.