Bhubaneswar, Sept. 4: Biju Patnaik University of Technology organised a soft skill development workshop at Odisha Engineering College, Bhubaneswar for students from engineering, management, pharmacy programmes from more than 100 colleges under it.

Nearly 3,000 students took part in the workshop inaugurated by the technical education minister Sanjay Das Burma.

A study has revealed that the lack of spoken English skill has been preventing a large number of engineers from getting well-paying jobs. A massive 97 per cent engineers in the country cannot speak English - a minimum requirement for high-end jobs in corporate sales and business consulting.

The study, titled The National Spoken English Skills of Engineers Report, says about 67 per cent of engineers graduating from colleges cannot speak English that is required to get a good job.

"Our school curriculum focuses on chemistry, mathematics and physics. The reduced focus on soft skills has led to such a situation. As a result, students lose out on good job prospects," said Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) vice-chancellor S. S. Pattnaik.

Odia students mostly face pronunciation problems, followed by fluency, grammar and sentence construction.

Das Burma said: "We must work together to make professional education more focussed and relevant." He said that BPUT and affiliated colleges need a proper marketing strategy to face the challenge.