ANANTAPUR: Engineering students from the sate not only have to face a lack of skill education at private engineering colleges but later have to encounter the economic fluctuations that make it hard for them to find employment opportunities. A recent survey revealed that as many as 97 per cent of graduating engineers want jobs either in software or core engineering fields. However, only 3 per cent of them have suitable skills to find employed in software or product market. Of them only 7 per cent can handle core engineering tasks.

Majority of the engineering college managements are unable to maintain the minimum standards to compete with the national-level institutions even though they produce big number of graduates. Many private colleges in AP and Telangana were in a verge of closer after they failed to attract top level multinational companies to conduct campus selections. A senior professor from JNTUA observed that very few private colleges are able to compete with government-owned colleges and attracting few companies. "A very small percentage of their engineering graduates are being absorbed by companies of repute," he said, adding that many colleges have single digit number of students in the various branches.





Profit-hungry managements with lack of skill education focus on rote-learning methods, and shortage of faculty, both in quantity and quality, were impacting on plaguing engineering education, sources said. "Just by collecting their degrees despite not being skilled enough to be a productive part, graduates were turning out as unemployed youths".

Official sources say that more than 6,000 engineering and technology institutions are enrolling more than 2.9 million students and produce around 1.5 million graduates each year who enter the job market. But many do not have adequate skills to be employed. Experts say that this causes serious instability in the economic and social conditions along with wide scale dissatisfaction and disillusionment. Further, companies are prone to visiting only top colleges to recruit potential employees. "The IT companies depend on economic conditions of their countries and provide projects according to their needs. Fluctuations generally reduce opportunities in local markets," Dr Somasekhar Reddy, an analyst, said. JNTUA registrar Krishnaiah observed that the varsity was providing skill development programme for all students including those from private colleges that could help improve skills.