A conversation about India's shortage of skills
Last week I had a phone conversation with a friend, who is a senior manager of a large software company in India. I asked him about some newspaper articles that I read regarding the shortage of software people in India. He told me that currently India software industry has approximately 2.5 million software people but demands are still exceeding supply so India is actually experiencing a shortage. However, he wanted to emphasize that the shortage is only on the highly skills not the lower skills such as programming or testing.
He said: “Most programmers and testers are trained in vocational schools or community colleges and we still have enough to meet demands. The shortage is at the university level with computer science and software engineer graduates. Our university system produces about half million engineers each year but only a fraction can actually perform industry works and that is the main reason for the shortage. In past years, foreign companies sent works to India because the cost of doing business was cheaper and there were many available skilled workers. However, they found that many university graduates did not meet their requirements and now it became a dilemma to our industry. Many foreign companies were disappointed with the quality of works and the news that we are running out of workers began to appear in foreign newspapers. It is not good for our business”.
I told him: “This is not new, the India's National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) has warned about this for years about the archaic education system” He said:”Yes but NASSCOM can not specify the curriculum in the country. It is up to the education system to change and it is difficult to change a system that has existed since colonial time. So it is up to each university to improve with their own ideas. We have many good students, we just need a new way to develop talents rather than focus on examinations alone. Today, students are memorizing “theories and equations” to pass exams because universities are still teaching theories rather than practices. To graduate, you must pass exams and people who wrote exam are university professors. So students are caught between academic and industry views. If they do not learn theories and memorizing equations, they can not pass exams and graduate. Without degrees, they can not get good jobs but after graduated they apply for jobs and being rejected because they do not have the skills. I think if we have more schools with higher quality education then the problem can be solved.
I told him: “That is not difficult consider the high demand of skilled workers and the expansion of the software industry”. He explained:”That is not easy because it is the quality of education, not quantity. We have many universities but not many good one. Our students are very motivated to learn, they all know that a good education is the best chance to escape poverty but there are so many obstacles that we must overcome. We are experiencing a shortage of highly skilled people as more demands are coming in. We have millions of people who want to learn but need a good education. Last year our industry made close to 90 billion dollars and we have a goal of achieving 300 billion dollars by 2020. We like to grow our workforce to 10 million people but it will be a challenge because of the current education systems. Our short term goal is to upgrade the skill of the current workforce to focus on specific domain areas such as aerospace, heavy industry, telecommunication, and healthcare. We do not want to be programmers or testers for the world but we want to create, innovate, build, manage, and operate Information Technology for the world.
I asked: “So how do you do that? You still have a shortage of highly skilled people?” He answered: “That is why many companies are investing in their own training and open their own universities. Few years from now, things will be different”. I cautioned him: “Training takes time and higher level works require experiences. Do you think the goal of growing your software industry maybe too idealistic?
He told me: “No, we do not think so. The growth curve is never a straight up but several ups and downs but we know that. Let's consider the current world market, all companies need skilled people but where can they find million of highly skilled workers? The U.S has the best technology schools but their people are not interest in technology anymore. The ten years enrollment declining in science and technology is the evidence that student there want to make money by study business, finance and banking but not engineering. Europe is also facing similar issue with more students study arts, music and entertainment rather than engineering. Without skilled people, companies have to outsource works to places where there are skilled people. Few years ago, they did it for lower cost but the rule has change, now they do it because of knowledge and skills. We are confident that our industry will continue to grow because we anticipate the market demands. Today we already captured a large part of the global market but when we achieves a critical mass of 70% or so, thing will not be the same. In another 10 years, the majority of technology jobs will be in our country and we will emerged as the technology center of the world.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
