The 0.6 billion dollar question

Doesn't it sound shoc­king for a country of more than
one billion peo­ple where every son, niece, friend's children seem to be
studying computer science? According to a Nasscom-McKinsey estimate, going by
the present trends and estimates, there will be a shortfall of over 500,000
qualified people by 2010. Of this 70 percent shortfall will be in the BPO
sector.

The problem is of quality and suitability. Only about 25
percent of technical gra­duates and 10-15 percent of general college graduates
are considered suitable for em­ploy­ment in the offshore IT and BPO industries
respectively.

The types of skills required in the two industries differ.
The IT industry needs pro­gram and solution architects with varied domain
skills. They are the backend workers with superior analytical and technical
skills. In many cases they need domain skills relevant to the area they work in.
The services sector needs great communication skills and others at the base
levels. But as the industry stretches itself to embrace more kno­wledge-based
services, the need for domain skills starts increasing. The problems to an
extent are common. And so are the answers.

Waiting for the education system to deliver is not the
solution. For two reasons-one, the governments do not appear to be in a hurry
to do anything about it. Two, you cannot make a child grow by pulling it at both
ends. So, even if we have a great education system in place it will take a
decade for the impact to be felt.

Obviously what is then required is a crash course, as it
was called in my college days. This would typically start a few hours before the
examination and would end just before the paper was distributed.

Let us assume that during the next five years, 500,000
people need to be made ' industry ready'. They could be fresh graduates or
people working in other industries. And that each person would cost Rs 50,000 to
get this 'qualification'. That works out to Rs 2,500 crore or $0.6 billion
approximately. That is about 1.8 percent of the industry revenue. That is also
the amount, Nimbus Com­munications bid for cricket advertising rights till
2010. Should this much money be invested in re-training people so that they can
be absorbed by the industry? And who should spend it? One cannot think of many
options to these ques­tions. Sure-education is not the job of the industry.
But finding resources for its own growth is. And this indus­try has been riding
past inves­tments in education for stupendous growth. It is also not mandatory
that all the investment should come from the industry. The other stakeholders,
including the 'students', could contribute.

If it is not a money problem then what is it? Maybe the
seeds of potential failure lies in the success of the IT/ITeS industry. It is so
busy growing that it has no time to develop people. In the old days, all good
companies absorbed fresh graduates and made them industry ready over a period of
a year or two. They were paid stipends. Many of those people are running the IT
and ITeS companies today. What stops similar models from working today? 

How to make this gigantic training effort happen? It is
tough, but let us not forget that all companies in IT/ITeS are process driven.
Some of them employ 50,000 people. So they should have the expertise to develop
and deliver 'Get Industry Ready' programs.

That seems to leave only the last thing. 'Will' to do
so. Why is that missing? I have no answers. After all this is an investment. It
will not pay back tomorrow. But it will pay back day after tomorrow.

(The author is Editor-in Chief of CyberMedia publications. shyamm@cybermedia.co.in)