Andhra Pradesh produces an incredible 7.5 lakh graduates every year. To churn out these huge numbers are over 700 engineering colleges, several medical, traditional degree college and prestigious institutes, says the State Minister for Information Technology and Communications (IT& C), Mr Ponnala Lakshmaiah.
Also contributing to this number of graduates are institutions like the NIT in Warangal, the IIT, IIIT, ISB in Hyderabad. However, we need to focus on developing “the right” human resources, said the Minister while addressing the national HRD network conclave here today.
Right focus
Giving the analogy of Singapore, he said the pyramid is intact – there are a whole lot of skilled labour (ITI equivalent) produced and somewhat less number of technicians (polytechnic equivalent) and fewer engineers (BTech equivalent) and very few post graduates.
In Andhra Pradesh or in India in general, we are not seeing that pattern. “I believe we need to set our focus right and produce the right kind and quantity of human resources at every level. Otherwise, the “ecosystem” is going to falter exposing our country to some serious social problems in the future, he felt.
Under the Information Technology Ministry, we have observed in the 2004-05 time-frame, the hit rate or the employment conversion for the engineering graduates was around 6 to 7 per cent. We have then introduced the Jawahar Knowledge Centre (JKC) programme, which trains students for employability in the MNC space. The employment levels have gone up to 25 per cent at one stage and they are slowly getting normalised now.
Our IT exports due to the human resource potential of the State have crossed Rs 35,000 crore, he said
Entrepreneurship
The Minister said HR development also involves nurturing a good amount of entrepreneurship and the ability to create and spawn businesses and the ability to attract investments and the flexibility to adapt to global changes. Without which, the country is set to see serious unemployment problems, Mr Ponnala added.