Seamless inflow of fresh talent with sector specific skills is a pre-requisite for growth in any sector and Indian companies have realized this fact long ago. 6 lac+ engineers graduate every year with a dream of working in the coveted IT industry, and the industry is also leaving no stones unturned to attract and retain top talent from computer and IT branches as well as other non-core IT branches . Computer Programming and Algorithm Design knowledge is a mandatory requirement for some and a desirable trait for others; some companies assess candidates on their basic understanding of programming while others demand a thorough knowledge. Given the significance of knowledge of computer programming for fresh engineers in the world of IT industry, Aspiring Minds conducted a pan-India study to examine how well our young engineers are able to program before they join a company.

The report¹ is based on AMCAT (Aspiring Minds Computer Adaptive Test) tests conducted on a sample of 55,000+ engineering students from 250+ engineering colleges across India. The analysis and findings of this report are based on the performance of these students in the Computer Programming module of AMCAT, which is widely recognized as India's largest and only standardized employability test. The module is adaptive and its scoring is based on Item Response Theory (IRT), a globally accepted statistical technique for assessments in high stake exams. The study attempts to gauge and understand the learning levels of engineers from various perspectives and provide answers to queries like:

• What percentages of engineers, from IT as well as non IT background, are well-versed in basic programming constructs to be able to write simple programs with loops/conditions etc.
• How do engineers fare in advanced areas of Data structures and Object-oriented programming
• Are students able to understand concepts and apply them, or do they just do rote learning
• What is the difference between the knowledge levels of computer programming for engineers in computer and non-computer branches

Key Findings

During the exhaustive analysis performed during the processing of this report, some salient points which came out very strongly are summarized below:

• Around 30% of CS/IT engineers could not even answer questions around basic theoretical concepts of computer programming. Approx 50% had little or no exposure to terms and definitions in advanced areas of algorithm design such as complexity theory.
  For non-IT engineers 65% and 70% students could not answer questions around basic computer programming and complexity theory respectively. The lack of basic understanding of terms and definitions in programming/algorithms would hamper learning of advanced concepts in the field.


• 50-60% CS/IT engineers do not understand subtleties of programming concepts, while more than 80% are unable to apply them to real-world situations!!
  Programming constructs application is an important component of job for any IT engineer, and given the fact that a mere 14.97% of the engineers are able to do, is alarming. The finding that a very small percentage of candidates are able to apply their programming knowledge into solving simple real world problems leads to questions on the quality of engineering graduates, our engineering colleges are producing. Such low percentage of correct response only reinforces the common opinion that our education system is lagging behind in laying required stress on practical implementation of acquired knowledge.


• Similar patterns were observed for theoretical, conceptual and application-based questions on different areas in programming. The only exception was complexity theory, where students do not even have basic theoretical knowledge of concepts.
  This indicated that while students are able to rote learn both basic and advanced areas, but are unable to apply either of them. This leads to questions on teaching/learning pedagogy used in colleges who are probably missing the point. Knowledge is only useful if it can be applied intelligently. Probably students don't even have exposure to solving such application based questions and college curriculum is focused on covering all topics and rote-learning in multiple areas, rather than building strong computing fundamentals and promoting understanding of concepts.


• Data Structure emerged as one area where CS/IT students perform similar to non-CS/IT engineers.
  The difference in the percentage of correct responses for CS/IT vs. other non IT engineers in other areas of programming is around 30-35%. This suggests that data structure do occupy a space in the curriculum of non CS/IT branches also, which is quite gratifying. One would have expected a high correct response rate at least in the section of Programming Constructs for non-CS/IT engineers, required for writing basic programs, however that wasn't the case.

Conclusion

The findings of this study were truly eye opening. As the questions progressed from theoretical concepts to conceptual and application based, the correct response percentage nosedived. This reinforces the fact that imparting factual knowledge only and then assessing students on the same factual knowledge alone is just promoting rote-learning and not building a smart and efficient workforce of IT engineers.

Engineering is the career aspiration of a large majority of Indian youth and we pride ourselves on building a brigade of super engineers which power the world's smartest innovations. But sadly the reality is that although today the rate of production of engineers in India is larger than any other nation, the quality of our engineers with regards to their programming capability has a matter of deep concern for corporates and academia alike. It is time to step back from opening new institutes and do a systematic analysis of the curriculum and the teaching pedagogy across universities and whether or not they match industry requirements. IT/CS students must be equipped with sophisticated and latest tools to help them develop a better grip over the understanding of the software domain. And most importantly, practical sessions must occupy a greater portion of the total time devoted on programming subjects to develop students' ability to use their programming knowledge into solving real world problems.

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