K.B. KUMAR

– KB Kumar is an Eco-systemic Developmental Educationist from Kerala, Former national director of FIITJEE and Network Director of the Shri Ram Group

India graduates 1.5 million engineers each year, but over 80 percent of them complete their degrees without a job in hand or an internship offer. Of those employed, selection is often based on circumstance rather than merit. Despite claims of “steady improvement” in talent quality, most engineers enter an oversaturated market lacking ‘in-demand’ skills. A persistent gap remains between job readiness and job absorption. What systemic flaws are behind these outcomes, and what are the remedies?

History of uniformity mindset. The issue is deeply linked to socio-educational systems shaped by the Industrial Revolution, which redefined quality as ‘worker conformity’ to standardised production systems. This period prioritised mass production over craftsmanship and individual excellence. Taylorism particularly, aimed for “one best way” of working, denigrating individual discretion. That philosophy still influences how our engineers are selected, taught, and assessed. It directly undermines the needs of a post-industrial-age knowledge-economy centred on problem-solving, creativity, cognitive skills, and adaptability.

Structural change is overdue, yet schools and colleges remain stuck in traditional, standardised models. When engineering institutions fail to recognise students’ strengths and interests before enrolment, and nurture them after, focus dilutes, talent erodes, and national skill development suffers.

Cognitive mismatch begins in K-12 education. Many students begin higher education hindered by structural and cognitive limitations ingrained in the K-12 system which barely understands how the brain learns or functions. With 86 billion neurons and over a quadrillion synapses, the human brain’s potential far exceeds what our classrooms demand. Despite advances in neuroscience, India’s K-12 schooling is mired in text, rote memorisation and examinations that evaluate very little of what truly matters.

Over time, students and teachers become what examinations demand of them. Just as the helm steers the ship, examinations shape teaching and learning. Reimagining examinations as catalysts can unlock the potential we seek to nurture in students and teachers. As a first step, educators can experiment with portfolio-based and design-centred assessment of creativity and comprehension, strategic self-assessment, open-book examinations, and peer-group evaluation to develop more authentic learning metrics.

Assessment, fit, and case for early differentiation. Tools and instruments to assess course suitability, learning style preferences, and career fit already exist. Frameworks such as Multiple Intelligences, the Big Five, MBTI, Keirsey, and aptitude-based psychometrics illustrate this variety. Others are structured interviews, interest inventories, behavioural assessment, and AI-enabled tools such as Pymetrics and Hogan. No single metric is perfect: the best approach combines complementary tools, guided self-reflection, and expert mentorship. School students whose dispositions align with their higher education aspirations will pursue their studies with rigour, thereby enhancing employability, well-being, and personal happiness.

Curriculum, faculty, and experiential learning. Excessive massification of education institutions without proper oversight encourages rote learning, outdated skills, and mechanical reproduction of information, sidelining creativity, critical thinking, ethical judgment, and foundational capabilities. These shortcomings, together with gaps in maths, reasoning, and communication, highlight failures in basic schooling and warrant diagnostic intervention.

AI, data analytics, semiconductors, cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing, and design receive inadequate thrust in college syllabi. Research indicates that curricula co-designed with industry and reviewed every two to three years by experts, improves employability. As evidenced by research, Industry Advisory Boards with real authority, constituted for engineering institutions, strengthen students’ employability.

Empowering educators is crucial. Engineering education must begin by strengthening core capabilities, niche proficiencies, and differentiated instruction capabilities. Moreover, big-picture-driven reforms that auto-integrate K-12 education can prepare students for higher studies in advance, enabling college faculty to focus on developing niche skills and differentiated instruction. Regrettably, contemporary engineering education is classroom-centric, and most faculty lack industry experience. Faculty nevertheless remain products of the same system they are expected to reform.

Structural realignment, not incremental reform. The employability crisis in engineering is the result of an education system that clings to its comfort zones, unwilling to move away from traditions rooted in uniformity, scale, and paper degrees. Comprehensive reform, anchored in early recognition of learner potential, assessment systems that reward demonstrated competence, regularly updated industry-collaborative curricula, differentiated teaching-learning, real-world skills development, and fostering of intrinsic motivation through appropriate tools, can be transformative. Unfragmented, these regenerative inputs can address the current crisis confronting engineering education.

When engineering institutions fail to recognise students’ strengths and interests before enrollment, and nurture them after, focus dilutes, talent erodes and national skill development suffers