[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/5640.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Employability and skill set of newly graduated engineers in India

Author

Listed:
  • Blom, Andreas
  • Saeki, Hiroshi
Abstract
Skill shortage remains one of the major constraints to continued growth of the Indian economy. This employer survey seeks to address this knowledge-gap by answering three questions: (i) Which skills do employers consider important when hiring new engineering graduates? (ii) How satisfied are employers with the skills of engineering graduates? and (iii) In which important skills are the engineers falling short? The results confirm a widespread dissatisfaction with the current graduates -- 64 percent of employers hiring fresh engineering graduates are only somewhat satisfied with the quality of the new hires or worse. After classifying all skills by factor analysis, the authors find that employers perceive Soft Skills (Core Employability Skills and Communication Skills) to be very important. Skill gaps are particularly severe in the higher-order thinking skills ranked according to Bloom's taxonomy. In contrast, communication in English has the smallest skill gap, but remains one of the most demanded skills by the employers. Although employers across India asks for the same set of soft skills, their skill demands differ for Professional Skills across economic sectors, company sizes, and regions. These findings suggest that engineering education institutions should: (i) seek to improve the skill set of graduates; (ii) recognize the importance of Soft Skills, (iii) refocus the assessments, teaching-learning process, and curricula away from lower-order thinking skills, such as remembering and understanding, toward higher-order skills, such as analyzing and solving engineering problems, as well as creativity; and (iv) interact more with employers to understand the particular demand for skills in that region and sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Blom, Andreas & Saeki, Hiroshi, 2011. "Employability and skill set of newly graduated engineers in India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5640, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5640
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2011/04/25/000158349_20110425112950/Rendered/PDF/WPS5640.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mehtabul Azam & Aimee Chin & Nishith Prakash, 2013. "The Returns to English-Language Skills in India," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(2), pages 335-367.
    2. Lex Borghans & Angela Lee Duckworth & James J. Heckman & Bas ter Weel, 2008. "The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(4).
    3. Sendhil Mullainathan & Marianne Bertrand, 2001. "Do People Mean What They Say? Implications for Subjective Survey Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 67-72, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sofianos, Andis, 2022. "Self-reported & revealed trust: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    2. Delaney, Liam & Harmon, Colm & Ryan, Martin, 2013. "The role of noncognitive traits in undergraduate study behaviours," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 181-195.
    3. Bidisha Chakraborty & Souparna Maji & Anamika Sen & Isha Mallik & Sayantan Baidya & Esha Dwibedi, 2019. "A Study on Happiness and Related Factors Among Indian College Students," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 17(1), pages 215-236, March.
    4. Powdthavee, Nattavudh & Boyce, Christopher J. & Wood, Alex M., 2011. "Can Money Change Who We Are? Estimating the Effects of Unearned Income on Measures of Incentive-Enhancing Personality Traits," IZA Discussion Papers 6131, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Marco Caliendo & Katrin Huber & Ingo E. Isphording & Jakob Wegmann, 2024. "On the Extent, Correlates, and Consequences of Reporting Bias in Survey Wages," Papers 2411.04751, arXiv.org.
    6. Dietmar Fehr & Yannick Reichlin, 2021. "Status, Control Beliefs, and Risk-Taking," CESifo Working Paper Series 9253, CESifo.
    7. Rachid Laaja & Karen Macours, 2021. "Measuring Skills in Developing Countries," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 56(4), pages 1254-1295.
    8. Chuah, Swee-Hoon & Gächter, Simon & Hoffmann, Robert & Tan, Jonathan H.W., 2023. "Who discriminates? Evidence from a trust game experiment across three societies," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    9. Delprato, Marcos & Akyeampong, Kwame & Dunne, Máiréad, 2017. "The impact of bullying on students’ learning in Latin America: A matching approach for 15 countries," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 37-57.
    10. Ran Gu & Cameron Peng & Weilong Zhang, 2021. "The gender gap in household bargaining power: a portfolio-choice approach," IFS Working Papers W21/11, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    11. Giuseppe Albanese & Guido de Blasio & Paolo Sestito, 2017. "Trust, risk and time preferences: evidence from survey data," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 64(4), pages 367-388, December.
    12. Martin, Ralf & Muûls, Mirabelle & de Preux, Laure B. & Wagner, Ulrich J., 2012. "Anatomy of a paradox: Management practices, organizational structure and energy efficiency," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 208-223.
    13. Nicholas Bloom & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2015. "Do Private Equity Owned Firms Have Better Management Practices?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 442-446, May.
    14. Insoo Cho & Peter F. Orazem, 2021. "How endogenous risk preferences and sample selection affect analysis of firm survival," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1309-1332, April.
    15. Proto, Eugenio & Rustichini, Aldo, 2012. "Life Satisfaction, Household Income and Personality Traits," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 86, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    16. Mujcic, Redzo & Frijters, Paul, 2013. "Still Not Allowed on the Bus: It Matters If You're Black or White!," IZA Discussion Papers 7300, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Sergio Sousa, 2010. "Small-scale changes in wealth and attitudes toward risk," Discussion Papers 2010-11, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    18. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6s39gt704s95upu27ma7s3p6q8 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Boyce, Christopher & Czajkowski, Mikołaj & Hanley, Nick, 2019. "Personality and economic choices," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 82-100.
    20. Andrés, Antonio R. & Halicioglu, Ferda, 2010. "Determinants of suicides in Denmark: Evidence from time series data," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(2-3), pages 263-269, December.
    21. Tomáš Želinský & Martina Mysíková & Thesia I. Garner, 2022. "Trends in Subjective Income Poverty Rates in the European Union," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(5), pages 2493-2516, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Teaching and Learning; ICT Policy and Strategies; Primary Education; Educational Sciences; Knowledge for Development;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5640. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.