It’s the placement season again and it is only a matter of time before a student’s life history is paraded around news channels for securing a dream placement offer. What is however neglected by the same channels are the multiple other people who have had to settle for a mass recruitment company role with a pitiful salary and no scope for development of the very skills they spent honing for the last 4 years.
So how are On-campus placements responsible for someone’s unemployability? Well for starters the number of students placed in a year act as a marketing gimmick by the college to draw more students into the next year, and with countries like India where you having a job at the end of the degree is considered to be the final step in ladder, it is but obvious there will be more people moving towards the area where a job is almost confirmed after a degree. This is exactly what the problem is, people coming into the stream aren’t in it because they want to be, but because they are promised a return on their investment.
What exactly is removing the whole concept of ‘On-campus Placements” achieving? It primarily makes sure that people do not join a course because they are made to believe there is a job for them at the end of it. What it also does is prepare students for later on in life where they might have to leave a company and look for a job on their own. Either way, it is a win-win.
People coming into the stream aren’t in it because they want to be, but because they are promised a return on their investment.
Obviously, there are other factors as well such as outdated courses, the lack of real work experience even in a 9 pointer makes it very hard to get good employees out of Indian Universities, but I believe once placements are removed and there is already a filter in place allowing only those really interested in the course to come in then the other issues can be tackled quickly.
Abhijit Krishna Menon