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IITs see 5% decline in campus placements
In some of the IITs there has been a sharp drop of almost 8-10% including IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur among others.
Campus placement at IITs across the country has taken a hit with a 5% drop in total placements since last year.
In some of the IITs there has been a sharp drop of almost 8-10% including IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur among others.
Some of the other IITs such as Delhi and Madras have reported 3-5% drop in campus placements.
According to officials, out of the 23 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) the campus placement took place in 17 IITs. The remaining six IITs were newly established in 2014-15 and 2015-16. Hence, the data for campus placement is not available. There are 75,000 students studying in 23 IITs in the country.
The Human Resource and Development (HRD) ministry attributes the low placement rate to prevailing market condition, preference for higher studies, renewed interest of students towards start-ups and entrepreneurship.
HT had first reported about shrinking job offers for IITians on July 19.
According to a senior HRD official, they have taken cognizance of the drop and to ensure better performance next year IITs have been asked to draw up an action plan. “A number of measures are already in place and IITs have been told to ensure that the placement cell puts in more effort to reach out to companies,” said a senior HRD official.
Sources said, some of the IITs have developed career development centres that provide support to students in choosing career opportunities. “Companies that come nowadays are also looking for soft-skills in candidates apart from their command over the subject. A number of IITs have started investing in such activities which will provide an edge to their students in getting a job. Some of the IITs have performed better in the pre-placement session held this year,” added the official.
IIT sources say that while the number of companies visiting IITs has increased in many cases, job offers have decreased.
“There are several reasons behind this. One of the major reasons is the global slowdown so naturally IITs have been impacted too. For instance the number of offers companies have made has come down but at the same time there are more companies that have come for placements. We are hopeful that the situation will be much better this year,” said an IIT director requesting anonymity.
