Perspectives on

Global Development
and Technology
P g d t

PGDT 7 (2008) 55-68 www.brill.nl/pgdt

Impact of Globalization on Core Engineering

Education in India

Duru Arun-Kumar
Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, Delhi University, New Delhi 110075, India
E-mail: duruarun@rediffmail.com

Abstract
The education system in India continued to be based on the colonial legacy of bureaucratic
administration even after fifty years of independence. But, under globalization and liberalization
policies of the government, engineering higher education has acquired a new interpretation of
increasing credential value, where the degree per se is more important for securing a high-paying
job, primarily in the software and information technology sector, than for acquiring specific
knowledge and skills. This is reflected in the employment pattern of the graduates with a core
engineering background.

Keywords
<please supply between five and eight keywords>

Introduction
India began liberalizing its economy in 1991. One of the objectives of liberal-
ization has been to make Indian industries more efficient and globally com-
petitive. Toward this end, the government of India has been pursuing three
sets of reforms:

i) Disbanding the complex network of industrial controls, industrial

licensing, and permit system: this was done in the belief that such a step
would expose Indian firms to international competition, compel them
to improve their efficiency and productivity, and introduce new pro-
cesses and products;
ii) Liberalizing foreign trade and currency transactions so as to expose
Indian firms to global markets and compel them to produce better
quality goods;
iii) Instituting several measures to facilitate foreign direct investment (FDI)
inflow with the hope that it will have spillover effects on technology
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and improve the productivity of Indian firms. (Datt and Sundharam

2001; Siddharthan 2004)

Besides these important measures, it was also necessary to develop an infra-

structural and technical support system for sustainable and effective industrial
growth. An important component of this support system was a provision of a
steady supply of technical manpower, which could be an active player in the
industrial growth process. In order to meet the technical manpower require-
ment in the country, the government took several measures in this regard.
Among these measures, especially important was the privatization of higher
education policy.
A large number of technical institutes and engineering colleges have been
set up across India (see Table 1 below). Their number has increased in absolute
terms as well as in comparison to other disciplines.
After fifteen years of ushering in the era of liberalization and rapid indus-
trial growth, India needs to ask itself fundamental questions: Have the engi-
neering institutes (private/public) fulfilled the role of providing qualified and
skilled manpower to Indian industries? Can we measure the contribution of
qualified engineers in the productivity of a firm? The engineering colleges
across the country are producing hundreds of thousands of engineers every
year, but what kind of employment opportunities exist for them and what do
they seek? These are in fact interesting questions to be dealt with.
A number of studies have been conducted to find the impact of the global-
ization and liberalization of India’s economic policies on the productivity of
Indian firms (Siddharthan 2004; Das 2004; Ray 2004; Golder 2004). There
have been indirect references to the role of skilled and semi-skilled labor, but
no direct reference has been made to the role of qualified engineers in the
industry’s growth.

Objectives
The goals of undergraduate education in engineering are twofold: a) to prepare
graduates to contribute to engineering practices by learning from professional
assignments, and b) to prepare them for graduate studies in engineering. The
question is whether our present education system help achieve these goals.
Introduction of new economic reforms in the early 1990s in India required
reforms in higher education. However, public expenditure on higher educa-
tion declined significantly (Kapur and Mehta 2004). This can be noted in the
trends in per student expenditure on higher education. At 1993-94 prices,
expenditure in higher education (overall) per student declined from Rupees

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Table 1
Growth of Degree/Diploma Institutions and Sanctioned Intake in
Engineering in Post-independence Era
Year Degree Diploma
No. of institutions Intake No. of institutions Intake
1950 50 3,700 48 4,200
1960 110 16,000 195 26,500
1970 145 18,200 309 43,500
1980 158 28,500 332 49,200
1990 337 66,600 879 1,22,000
2000 778 1,85,758 1215 2,11,894
2003 1208 3,59,721 1197 2,42,698
Source: (I) Technical Education in Independent India 1947-1997.
(II) The All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Annual Reports.

Table 2
Growth of Technical Education Institutions since 1950
Year → 1990 1995 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
Program
Degree 337 375 471 558 662 776 838 1057 1208
(Engineering)
Degree 128 164 184 197 230 237 274 294
(Pharmacy)
Degree 91 94 93 93 103 107 107 108
(Arch.)
Degree 7 12 22 28 36 38 40 43
(HMCT)
MBA 312 508 584 647 712 749 819 930
MCA 146 224 310 494 553 865 1006

Source: (I) Technical Education in Independent India 1947-1997.

(II) The AICTE Annual Reports.

7676 in 1990-91 to Rupees 5873 in 2001-02, a decline of nearly 25% points

in the index (based on Analysis of Budgeted Expenditure on Education, Tilak
2004, p. 2160). Another important development affecting higher education
was the government of India’s (1997) discussion paper on “Government Sub-
sidies in India,” where higher education was classified as a “non-merit” good,

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that is, not deserving government subsidies, like any other tradable service
with profit as its primary motive. Decline in governmental funding in higher
education led to a search for non-governmental resources. On the bases of
recommendations of expert committees (Tilak 2004), the government pro-
posed the following ways of generating resources for higher education: raising
the fee levels, consultancy and sale of other services by the institutions, intro-
duction of self-financing courses and institutions and introduction of student
loans. The increasing demand for technical manpower led to the establish-
ment of a number of private institutes of higher education. A large number
of such private institutes were a result of the entrepreneurial activities of poli-
ticians and business individuals (Kapur and Mehta 2004). The maximum
impact of these developments was seen in the case of technical and manage-
ment education. The university grants for higher education in social sciences
declined considerably, as they could not be directly linked to market needs
and increasing industrial growth. This was the result of emergence of global-
ization, open markets, deregulation and privatization, and foreign investment
and increased trade.
The expansion in technical education was promoted largely by the private
sector. As of 2004, there were 1,2088 engineering degree colleges, of which
968 were in the private sector, with a total sanctioned intake of over 0.36 mil-
lion students. According to the U.R. Rao Committee Report, Revitalizing
Technical Education, submitted to the government of India in September
2003, the virtual explosion in the number of technical institutions in India
in the post-liberalization period has been fueled by speculative rather than
real demands and exploited by self-financing enterprises. The speculation
is based on the increasing role of information technology and software-
related jobs, outsourcing of jobs to India and setting up of multinational
corporations.
However, the increase in the demand for technical manpower and engineer-
ing education (University Grants Commission 1996, 1998) was in response to
the global market trends in employment rather than local industrial needs,
and even that was mainly in information and communication technology (ICT)
and software-related fields, not in the manufacturing or primary sector.
Employment growth has been seriously lagging behind output growth.
India’s policy of deregulation of the economy has led to an increase in output
and productivity (GDP), but the corresponding job growth has been very low,
indicating low employment elasticity in the industrial manufacturing sector
(Mazumdar 2003, Mazumdar and Sarkar 2004). The U.R. Rao report observes
that employment in the primary sector has been declining steadily even though
the contribution of the sector to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has

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Table 3
Industry-wise Employment in the Organized Sector (in millions)
Sector 1983 1987-88 1993-94 1999-2000
Manufacturing 6.3 6.3 6.4 6.5
Transport, Storage, 2.9 3.0 3.1 3.1
Communication
Services 10.2 11.2 12.3 13.2
Source: S. Kathivel, Pinaki Joddar, EPW. May 27, 2006, pp. 2107-2114).

increased (Manufacturing Sector in 2007—10.7%). The growth of the tradi-

tional sector of manufacturing in recent years has failed to contribute
significantly to employment in India. Employment opportunities have shifted
to knowledge-intensive service sectors, necessitating the restructuring of
the educational programs; this has been quickly exploited by private enter-
prise. As a result, this trend has contributed to marked disparities in cost,
quality, availability, region, and sector-wise growth of technical higher educa-
tion (Sahni and Kale 2004). The present study is an attempt to understand the
relevance of core engineering education (MPAE and ICE) in employment in
the changing socioeconomic conditions in India under the liberalized regime.
Engineering continues to be the most coveted undergraduate qualification.
But its relevance to the growth of industry in India needs a comprehensive
analysis.

Methodology
This study is based on data collected from undergraduate but graduating stu-
dents of two core engineering branches: Manufacturing Processes and Auto-
mation Engineering (MPAE) and Instrumentation and Control Engineering
(ICE) of a state government-funded engineering college. A class of a total of
55 students belonging to the MPAE branch and 50 students belonging to the
ICE branch of the 2003-2007 group were interviewed. The author interacted
with the students very closely, both formally as well as informally during
the years of their stay at the institute. The author also interviewed company
chief executive officers who had come to recruit students on the college cam-
pus for jobs. Job placement profiles of students were used to analyze employ-
ment patterns.

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Table 4
Job Offers Made to the Graduating Students by the Recruiting Companies
in the Year 2006-2007 during On-campus Placement Program
Branch Software and Core Non-technical Total Offers
IT Services Engineering Services
Manufacturing 57 (65%) 20 (23%) 11 (21) 88
and Automation
Engineering (55)
Instrumentation 59 (84%) 7 (9%) 6 (7%) 82
and Control
Engineering (50)

Findings
1. Most students had job offers from software and IT service companies
even though all students were being educated and trained in core engi-
neering disciplines, as indicated in the following table.
2. These students cited high salaries and high social status as reasons for
preferring software jobs. The data on the salaries offered by the recruit-
ing companies shows that the average pay offered by the software and
ICT companies was significantly higher than that offered by the core
companies.
3. More than 90% of the students wanted to pursue a Master’s degree
in Business Administration (MBA), as opposed to pursuing technical
jobs or graduate studies in engineering after completing their studies, as
they believed that an MBA degree would make them eligible for high-
paying jobs in the corporate sector. Almost all the students wrote various
entrance examinations to qualify for admission to the premier manage-
ment institutes of India. Only 3% of them were admitted to manage-
ment institutes.
4. The students felt that the undergraduate courses in the curriculum
lacked clearly defined objectives and scope for practical application,
making them irrelevant from a job perspective. Since most students
were interested in software jobs, they desired more computer-related
courses in the curriculum. Most students were not interested in the core
manufacturing or instrumentation-related subjects. Since they could
not qualify for admission in the highly competitive computer science,
electronics, or information technology (due to limited number of seats),

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they took admission in these core-engineering branches as long as they

were assured of an engineering degree.
5. The students perceived teaching methods in the college rather theoreti-
cal and the course content obsolete. Since their education did not
emphasize practice and seemed far removed from the latest develop-
ments in the industry, they did not feel well equipped for jobs in the
core industries. Only a small number of students were interested in core
subjects. An important component of engineering education is the labo-
ratory and hands-on experience in application-oriented projects. But
the large number of students (55) in one class (in private institutes
this number may go up to 100) makes it difficult for faculty to provide
individual guidance and therefore restricts faculty to mainly classroom
teaching.
6. The industrial training program, an important component of engineer-
ing education, was not seriously followed or monitored, thus denying
them the necessary exposure to an industrial environment. Undergradu-
ate students are expected to complete summer and winter training pro-
grams (four to six weeks each) in industry and submit reports for
evaluation. An enquiry revealed that most students do not take this
activity seriously, as most of them do not aspire to work in core engi-
neering sector.
7. The students’ innovative ideas and project work remained confined to
college reports with no follow-up action on important findings. Since
there is little active institute-industry interaction, most of the projects
undertaken are of a peripheral nature and an extension of the previous
years’ projects, getting grades being the primary objective.
8. A large number of students, nearly 40% of the total interviewed, were
not sure or had no technical aspirations. Rather, they were more inter-
ested in getting an engineering degree. Students’ demand for engineer-
ing education is often based on societal and parental expectations.
Getting good grades, improving communication skills, and working on
projects, mainly to improve their curriculum vitae and employability
were the main goals for most of the students.
9. A few were keen to pursue Masters’ studies in American universities. No
student wanted to pursue post-graduation in engineering in India. Out
of the 105 students interviewed, 10 had taken the Graduate Record
Examination (GRE) and had applied to American universities for admis-
sion to MS and PhD programs.

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Discussion

According to Karl Mannheim (1968), knowledge is never a matter of pure

ideas that rise disembodied from their maker. Knowledge has implications for
social action. Furthermore, it reflects the position in society of the knower as
well as the corresponding events and dominant ideas of specific historical peri-
ods. Knowledge, even of the scientific sort, does not exist in some separate
sphere of truth. It is an intricate part of an altogether human process, bound
up in the interrelationships of history, society, and psychology. This concept
enabled him to debunk the notion, which still prevails, that education has
certain universal and eternal aims (Krishna Kumar 2005).
In India, education in the pre-British era, explains Krishna Kumar (2005),
catered to intellectual development and was a means to an end—the end being
high spiritual values. The skill, craft, arts, and knowledge of the illiterate masses
could impress educated Indians, including teachers, as being worth learning.
But the British colonists looked down upon native knowledge and skills. The
British wanted education to be a tool for undermining respect for indigenous
traditions and for instilling obedience. The missionaries wanted to promote
science education to help reveal the superstitious character of Hindu beliefs.
The colonial government evolved a new bureaucratic system of educational
administration. This system implied a high degree of centralization in deci-
sion-making, both in employment-related matters (for example, rules of
recruitment for teachers) and in academic matters such as curriculum, choice
of textbooks, and examinations. While the indigenous system of education
was dependent on local resources—both in terms of the person available for
teaching children and the money or other material support required to sustain
him—the new colonial system depended on provisions made by the govern-
ment. In academic matters, the old system offered substantial autonomy to
the teacher; the new system made the teacher a subordinate functionary of
superior officers of the education department controlled by the State.
Half a century after colonial rule formally ended in India, the negative
consequences of colonial policy in education continue to shape the present
education system. The knowledge that schools and colleges dispense daily to
millions of students continues to be perceived by them as useful mainly for
success in examinations, rather than for intellectual satisfaction or job rele-
vance. This perception is particularly disturbing in the case of engineering
education requiring large investments. It has to be imparted by practical dem-
onstration, learning by doing and on the job.
In the last fifteen years (post-globalization), a large number of engineering
educational institutes have been set up in India. Most of them are private and

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self-financing colleges (Tilak 2002). Such private engineering institutions do

not have adequate infrastructure, laboratories, workshops, equipment, and
libraries. Added to these is the poor quality of teaching / technical staff,
with still poorer service conditions and salaries, all of which make technical
education awfully poor in quality. The root cause of these plights is the very
business-like philosophy of private managements running the technical edu-
cation for whom higher technical education is a big business. Profit-making
continues to be the sole motive of the managements, and lot of political
muscle-flexing goes on behind the setting up and operation of these technical
educational institutions.
Hence, the practical component of the education these institutions impart
is very low. On the other hand, the knowledge that students gain in everyday
life and what is conveyed to them by the cultural life of the family and com-
munity are construed to have no relevance in schools (or colleges), and is,
therefore, never subjected to the kind of reflection and enquiry that is associ-
ated with learning in school or college.
The present engineering education system in India may be better under-
stood as a distorted legacy of the British colonial top-down approach, where
the instructional material and the methods of teaching are centrally decided
and implemented, instead of evolving organically at the user level after careful
deliberations among all the stake-holders in the system (educationists, indus-
try, parents, education receivers). It is not based on short-term and long-term
needs and implications for the society. The observations made in the present
study could be explained in the context of colonial policies continuing to
shape our higher education system. The teaching methods were perceived by
the students to be theoretical, with little practical relevance; the course con-
tent was found to be obsolete (some of the courses had not been revised for
over twenty years). The mandatory assignments, project work, and industrial
training programs were done mainly for students to pass exams and get grades.
Little importance was given to learning and application. Thus, the Indian
education system continues to be based on a colonial system with emphasis
given only to textbook learning and pedagogic at that. But, with the increase
in the pace of globalization, the significance attached to it has changed from
knowledge acquisition to credential value. Getting a degree and affiliation to
a reputed organization have become relatively more important than knowl-
edge and skills acquired through such an association.
Even though there are wide gaps between the engineering curriculum at the
undergraduate level and the engineering skills required by the industry, the
demand for engineering education and engineering graduates continues to
increase. This can be observed from the increasing number of students seeking

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admission in engineering colleges over the last ten years. In the year 2006, for
1000 seats in different engineering disciplines, the Faculty of Technology,
Delhi University, received 40000 applications. Most companies prefer to train
fresh graduates rather than take experienced professionals for certain jobs.
Mathematical aptitudes and analytical and communication skills were quoted
as important criteria in selection for different jobs.
The process of globalization, facilitated by satellite communication, has lent
a distinct character to the higher education system in India. The markets,
mainly export-oriented, have created job opportunities in Software and IT-
related sectors, which are quickly exploited by private entrepreneurs who set
up private engineering institutes.
It is often recognized, though rarely admitted overtly, that the state of
knowledge production or what is framed as “relevant” knowledge within aca-
demic cultures of learning, research, and teaching is intimately tied to the
global concept of what is “marketable” (Tilak 1991). The Indian government
policy of promoting FDI and encouraging the setting up of units of multina-
tional corporations (MNC), business process outsourcing (BPO), and joint
venture companies in the post-liberalization phase have created several job
options in the informal private sector, mainly in the IT industry. All eco-
nomic and commercial activities are now heavily dependent on the use of IT.
This trend has led to an increase in the demand for IT professionals and man-
agers. Pattnaik (2005) in a recent paper has already pointed out that innova-
tive/in-house R&D activities in the Indian manufacturing sector, particularly
after the globalization and liberalization, have by and large declined. And
since the technology brought in by MNCs and the domestic firms from
abroad are already developed, the jobs in these companies require mainly
supervisory and managerial skills, developing interface with other sectors,
client handling, and data management. Hence, there are fewer demands on
producing core technology innovations and technology development, which,
in any case, require long-term investments in terms of money, effort, and
training. Since there are fewer demands, the curriculum in core engineering
branches, Instrumentation and Control and Manufacturing Processes, and
Automation Engineering, has not been upgraded or revised for more than
15 years. There is minimal industry-institute interaction. A majority of the
students did not feel equipped to take up jobs in the core industries. There-
fore, core engineering is no longer a preferred career option for most engi-
neers. At the same time, engineering as a profession has always been regarded
as a prestigious one, attracting able students and leading to good employ-
ment opportunities. Engineers have always been well-respected professionals
in modern India.

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Today, however, IT overshadows other engineering fields, even though

some sectors such as the automobile industry (Narayanan 2004) have, statisti-
cally speaking, shown high productivity in the last 15 years. More and more
ordinary citizens assume that an engineering degree is the best passport to a
lucrative career as an IT professional. A large number of engineering colleges
produce a vast majority of graduates who make up the workforce of the rap-
idly growing information technology sector (Fuller and Narasimhan 2006).
An unprecedented recruitment rate by the top Indian software companies has
made young people optimistic about becoming highly paid IT professionals.
Software companies are largely uninterested in how much engineering knowl-
edge the graduates actually possess. This was clearly stated by the CEO of a
leading software company to this author in an interview when asked about the
type of skills and qualifications required of students desiring to work in his
firm. Good academic record, a high score in aptitude tests, and good com-
munication skills in English were the most important recruiting criteria.
It is important to note that irrespective of the nature of the engineering
branch that students enroll in, a majority of them prefer to join the software
industry. An engineering degree per se becomes more important than the
nature of the subjects taught to them. The engineering education system
remains the same, but the meaning and significance attached to it have
changed. The role of the engineering degree has increasingly become a creden-
tial one, whereby the knowledge imparted or the curriculum taught in disci-
plines unrelated to computer science provides little value addition to the
students’ qualifications. This is also one of the reasons why a majority of
the students were not enthusiastic about learning the subjects taught to them.
The placement records of the students showed that 75% of the job offers made
were in software and IT-related services.
Information technology and software engineering become the “relevant”
knowledge under global forces. What are the factors that make software engi-
neering more relevant than core engineering subjects to the engineering stu-
dents? More than its inherent academic value, marketability is an important
criterion for preferring it as a professional choice. It promises higher social
status, high salaries, professional growth, low risk, low investment, more
options, opportunities to go abroad, and learning on the job. According to the
students, the skills required for getting a job at software firms can easily be
developed and honed by sitting at home, via the Internet and a home personal
computer. Whereas, to have an understanding of core subjects, good laborato-
ries and industrial exposure are essential, which are often not available due to
lack of infrastructure and expert faculty. The core engineering fields, being
older and more conventional, have a rigid hierarchical structure. In contrast to

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the software industry, where a fresh engineering graduate enters at the middle
level as a trainee and is given promotion after completion of the probation
period, in a core company a fresh graduate joins at a much lower position and
on a longer probation period. The core engineering and manufacturing orga-
nizations in the formal sector, regulated by government laws, are more disci-
plined and organized, being older and more traditional.
The salaries paid are much lower than those in the software industry. Most
of the core industries are capital intensive with a large machinery set-up. They
provide limited opportunities for individual innovations. The gestation period
for new technology development is much longer. Technology brought in by
foreign companies, being already developed and mature, offers fewer opportu-
nities for innovation and development. Young graduates are in a hurry to earn
big money and be successful, and so they choose the easier option of joining
the software industry. From Max Weber’s interpretative approach, the young
students’ actions and attitudes can be understood as a reflection of the increas-
ing social trend of attaching higher value to money than to knowledge. The
liberalizing process has accelerated the interaction of people in India with the
global forces of consumerism. As a result, increasing purchasing power to
acquire products has become more important than developing and innovating
the production processes and methods.
Only a very small number of students showed a preference for higher stud-
ies. Whether a student will pursue post-graduate education or not depends on
whether that education adds any value in obtaining employment, and obtain-
ing quality employment. An engineering degree is sufficient to get employ-
ment, but an MBA degree certainly attracts bigger pay packages and more
challenging jobs. Students gave a number of reasons for not going for higher
studies. Most students were offered high-paying software jobs even before for-
mal completion of their degree program. Big pay packets were much more
attractive than studying further. Almost no student was inclined to pursue
higher studies in India; the interested ones preferred doing so in American
universities because they perceived a higher degree in America as being of
greater academic quality and value. This would also improve their chances
of getting more prestigious, higher paying, challenging jobs, besides giving
them an opportunity to stay and work in America. But higher education in
America is very expensive and university funding is difficult to get, so not
many students could take this option. Very few students wanted to pursue a
research career, because the present system does not give them enough aca-
demic and practical exposure. Family responsibilities and financial security
were important considerations in the decision to take up jobs rather than go
for higher studies.

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Conclusion
India’s economic policy of liberalization and the ensuing globalization forces
have given a new interpretation to its engineering education. India’s education
system, even after more than fifty years of independence, continues to be
shaped by British colonial policies. It is characterized by highly centralized and
bureaucratic decision-making, with regard to employment, academic, and
other important matters. It is aimed at promoting a capitalist political econ-
omy. In addition, in the last 10 years, global forces of consumerism have
greatly undermined the constructive role of education. Engineering education
has come to play a credential role for most aspiring students; that is, the degree
is more important than the knowledge or skills imbibed.
The IT and software industries lure away a significant number of engineer-
ing graduates with lucrative job offers and higher social status. Due to this
trend, core-engineering fields are no longer attractive enough to prospective
students. Even though a large number of students take admission into core
engineering branches of non-computer or non-information technology pro-
grams, they do not apply the education and skills acquired, thereby, in the
relevant engineering fields. This results in core engineering branches becom-
ing redundant and a drain on investments. Relevance of core engineering edu-
cation for industrial growth in India needs to be urgently studied so that India
can have a comprehensive engineering education policy. It may not be an
overstatement to say that the major qualitative change brought about by the
forces of globalization in India is that India has emerged as a giant in the IT
and Software industry, but in other fields of science and technology, the cen-
ter-periphery dichotomy between North and South is being replaced by a
predominantly producer-consumer relationship.

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