From 25,000 a month in 2016-’17 to Rs 33,000 in 2020-’21, the average starting salary for engineering graduates in India increased by 30 per cent over the last five years and is inching closer to Rs 4 lakh per annum, an Indian Express analysis of the National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) reports has shown.
The gap between entry-level engineers graduating from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT’s) and other engineering colleges persists, with a BTech graduate from an IIT-Bombay, for example, seeing a 60 per cent increase – from Rs 9.5 lakh to Rs 15 lakh per annum – during the same period (2016-’17 to 2020-’21).
According to NIRF data, engineering graduates were offered an annual salary of Rs 3.02 lakh (2016-’17), Rs 3.19 lakh (2017-18), Rs 3.4 lakh (2018-’19), Rs 3.75 lakh (2019-’20) and Rs 3.98 lakh (2020-’21)
Every year, engineering institutions participating in the NIRF report provide information on the median salary of both undergraduates and postgraduates who have secured jobs through college placements in the previous three years. This is one of the components of the ranking, carrying 25 marks out of a total of 500. The latest engineering ranking report, released last week, was based on the responses of 1,181 institutions.
Employability of engineering graduates, however, remains a major concern. In 2020-’21, only 3.41 lakh engineering graduates at the undergraduate level managed to secure campus placements, compared to the 3.96 lakh in 2019-’20, as per latest available data from higher education controller All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
Employers often cite the quality of engineering education as the reason. A recent learning assessment survey, also conducted by AICTE, captured this: first-year students across major engineering branches struggled with mathematics more than any other core subject, with civil engineering students, electronics and communication students, mechanical engineering students, electrical engineering students, and computer science engineering students scoring 37.48%, 38.9%, 39.48%, 40.02%, 40.12%, respectively.
Courtesy : The Indian Express
