The Other SIde of the Software Boom

The other side of the software boom.

Indian software people are amongst the best in the world, known for good quality work at low prices. Indeed, at this point, or best known export product is the ubiquitous software engineer. There is, however another face to this software boom which is hardly discussed, at least not at all in places where it may matter.

1.The medium term objective of large numbers of Indian engineers is to acquire software skills, and thereafter a software job.
2.Traditional engineering, as in the science of building things is hardly being practiced. As a result, there are hardly any electronics/semiconductor industries in India. Metallurgy, materials technology, etc are fields in which there is substantial scientific research being undertaken, but very few developments in industry.
3.The expenditure incurred by a student's family and by the taxpayer (the paltry tuition fees payed at state universities does not cover operational costs, much less salaries of faculties) is largely wasted.
4.The same requirements of a software job could be met by specialised software courses taught at professional schools or private centres like NIIT.
5.IT enables services (or ITES), the most prominent being the 'Call Centre' requires Avinash and Shreya to become John and Lucy during working hours and answer the calls of idiot customers in the US of A like the writer who cannot figure out how to eject the CD tray on their jazzy new laptop (assembled in China).
6.Call Centres recruit from colleges. (This one is actually funny, GE once came recruiting to Presi Physics Dept. for their call centre at Gurgaon. Presi Physics produces physicists, writers and the occasional Naxalite. No call centre people.)
7.Call Centres recruit successfully from colleges. What, pray is the point of a college education, knowing about the Harappan civilisation, or about Economic geology, if you end up with that kind of a job?

There are things which are fundamentally wrong with the Indian education system at the moment. College education must be made as expensive as it truly is for professional courses. The Humanities and the Sciences must be incorporated in the form of a liberal arts curriculum as is practiced at American universities. Finally, standardization of syllabi is something which is talked about, but rarely attempted. This should be remedied. In this, the sciences should take the lead (there are not that many ways one can interpret Maxwell's equations), and national level screening exams like the JEST, the NET and the GATE should be made mandatory for all university upperclassmen.