Who has the edge?

Chennai, July 20: Next time Bill Gates comes head-hunting to India, he might prefer scouting north of the Vindhyas.

You can’t blame him if he does.

According to a recent study, students passing out of engineering colleges in states like Bengal, Delhi and Maharashtra are better than their counterparts in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.

The survey by MeritTrac Services, a competence assessment company, evaluated 25,000 fresh graduates from 800 engineering colleges. The Bangalore-based firm says graduates from Bengal, Delhi and Maharashtra and the regions the three represented outscored those from the south in an “IT abilities test” that assessed verbal and analytical skills and the ability to apply concepts to new situations.

The test was mainly related to skills required in the infotech industry.

The average scores indicate that “techies” in the three states “scored high percentages in all the sections compared to their counterparts south of the Vindhyas”, says Madan Padaki, the co-founder and director of MeritTrac.

The study, which MeritTrac says is “India’s first comprehensive survey on fresh engineering graduates”, is bound to sharpen the debate triggered by the Tamil Nadu government’s decision to do away with the common entrance test for admission to professional courses.

The state government order, aimed at ensuring a level playing field for rural candidates but was criticised for ignoring merit, was later struck down by Madras High Court. The Supreme Court subsequently declined to stay the high court’s verdict.

The study, set against the backdrop of the “tech boom” in the late nineties, focused on engineering colleges ? the “hotbeds for IT companies ? outside the IITs and the national institutes of technology earlier known as regional engineering colleges.

The survey categorised regions into hubs. For example, Delhi represented Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana, Maharashtra the entire western zone and Bengal the eastern region. MeritTrac, which took into account the increase in the number of engineering colleges in India, says the survey would provide “strategic inputs on the engineering graduates talent pool in India”.

According to MeritTrac, Delhi, Bengal and Maharashtra also account for a higher percentage of “candidate-selects”. While 42 per cent of graduates in these states satisfy selection criteria of IT companies, the figure for the four southern states is 31.5 per cent.

The southern states, however, make up for the “dip in quality by sheer quantity of output”, Padaki says but warns that if quality of engineering education is not improved in the south, the region would only turn out “more and more unemployable students”.

The study has also found a “low correlation of academic scores and performance in the tests”, which, Padaki says, indicates “a divergence of industry expectations and academic output”.