Editor’s note – The author, a student at the Delhi University, argues the factors behind the mindset that makes us Indians go crazy for Engineering, medicine and other professional courses. The author tries to explore the historical roots of this bias and also the influence of some factors such as the herd mentality to support his stance and in the end, suggests some solutions.

Author’s note – Through this article, I plan to show the reasons as to why the professions of engineering and medicine are most sought after and what effect it has on other fields of work as well as the aforementioned occupations. Finally, there are also some suggestions for improving the current state of affairs and seeing beyond these ‘professional degrees’.

In one of our recent popular Hindi films, the proud father of one of the protagonists exclaimed, mere moments after his son was born, that the son would become an engineer. Laughter ensued amongst the audience in the theatre. In real life though, this is no laughing matter, as a multitude of India’s population still lives under the belief that engineering and medicine are the only real fields of profession. On the surface, this might seem like a trivial problem dependent on one’s choices. But this seriously undermines the worth of professions other than these two. It is also the leading cause for job dissatisfaction among the aforementioned occupations. This is a problem of mindsets, among parents as well as students, urban as well as rural. And this needs to be changed for the better.

What has respect got to do with it?

Tracking the cause of such a problem is not an easy undertaking, especially when the causes are deeply rooted in our history i.e. the caste system. Even though the caste system has been abolished and any discrimination on the basis of caste or creed made illegal (except for the government’s discrimination against the ‘forward’ castes through the reservation system, which is wholly another story), certain remnants of it have latched on to our minds, so much so that it even appears normal to us. Such is the case with the professions of engineers and doctors. Through tradition, the occupation of a doctor is under the domain of the Brahmin, and the occupation of an engineer is under the domain of the Kshatriya. It is known that these two castes occupy the highest positions in the Chaturvarnya and are hence given more respect than is due to them. It is this craving for respect which invariably makes these professions seem respectable and thus the general clamour for these degrees is seen only in our country. On the other hand, the occupations which required creativity, such as artists or poets, came under the domain of the Shudra i.e. the lowest caste, considered untouchables. It is the reason why even now, such occupations are not considered real occupations by our populace.

India is a developing country, having gained her independence rather recently. As such, the need for infrastructure and healthcare is paramount. In other words, the professions of engineers and doctors are very important for our economy to develop and sustain itself. Once this was realized by the public, there was an increase in the reverence for such jobs. This caused a typical ‘trickle down effect’ i.e. people respecting these jobs simply on the basis of their need at that point in time, which persists to the present day. The problem is not these jobs being given extra respect; it is that the other professions are not getting the respect they deserve. And due to the less respect with which they are treated, people show less amount of interest to pursue these occupations, thereby leading to deterioration of the quality of work in that particular field due to scarcity of people applying for them.

Have you ‘herd’?

The talk of respect transcending from the past has one serious loophole. Certain occupations, such as teaching, or for that matter, preaching was held in the highest esteem amongst our society. But the profession has lost all respect among our ‘intelligentsia’. Therefore, there have to be more reasons as to why our ‘professional degrees’ are preferred over the ‘regular degrees’. It is the culmination of these reasons that are the cause for our much debatable state.

One thing we can all agree on is the fact that the Indian society is a close knit one. While this may have its own advantages which are beyond the scope of this article, there is one huge drawback of this practice- it gives rise to comparisons, even in those places where it is not needed. The indigenous habit of poking noses in other people’s business and letting them know of yours is a very dangerous one. Though people might dismiss this as a part and parcel of our society which promotes ‘healthy competition’, it gives rise to one of the most harmful concepts – Herd mentality. Whenever one hears of a neighbour boasting about how their son got into a really ‘prestigious college’ and will be earning lakhs of Rupees when he graduates, the rest of the colony also enrols their children in coaching classes for entrance exams, hoping that their kid will be better than ‘Mr. Gupta’s son’ when he graduates and becomes an engineer or doctor. What one forgets to see is the fact that is ‘Mr. Gupta’s son’ happy? Is he satisfied with his job? Does he have a satisfying job? In our quest for being the richer neighbour, we forget about the interest of our own. In a lot of cases, students take a ‘drop year’ if they are not able to get the engineering or medicine college of their choice. This, along with spending one year of one’s life studying, also invariably leads to the loss of gaining experience. Our obsession with a professional degree reaches a point where some students, who are not able to cope up with the pressure of studying for entrance exams, commit suicide. A CNN-IBN 2010 report on student suicides shows that every month, 25-30 students commit suicide in India. Of these, nearly 65 percent are either engineering students or aspirants.

The root cause of such a problem is the way in which an individual is brought up. In our society, independent thinking on the part of an individual is not promoted. What is promoted is the fact that is quite the opposite – one will listen to their parents at all times. This non-promotion of independent thought amongst the youth of the country disables a certain quality – foresight. Due to this inability, students always have their parents decide their future, and even if not so, by the time they enter the final years of their school life, they decide to go with the safer option that is followed by everyone. The reason as to why they are not willing to take the risk of choosing a path less taken is the fact that they are not aware that such options are available to them, whereas the parents always look forward to promote the tried and tested ideas. The two reasons balance each other out, which eventually leads to disaster. The point that is being put across is the fact that while deciding one’s future, an individual needs to have a say in it. After all, it is the individual who will be living that future for the rest of his life. The parents, in the quest for a secure future for their offspring, ignore their aptitude and interest towards the particular field and decide their wards’ future. By the time a tendency towards independent thinking is developed, the person is eternally stuck in the occupation that their parents forced onto them, and it won’t be long enough before they have a chat with kids of their own, explaining to them the same ideas that their parents had, leading to an endless circle of job dissatisfaction.

What happens next?

The increasing number of engineering and medical aspirants in our country is the leading cause in the increase of the number of ‘professional’ colleges with below par facilities and faculty being set up that offer students a below par studying experience and a sub standard degree. And the number of people applying for them is tremendous as not everyone manages to get into the best of the colleges. Even various coaching classes are being set up which are out to dupe people out of their money by promising them seats in IITs and top medical colleges by way of their top notch ‘mentors’.

A very interesting myth surrounding our professional degrees is the belief that no matter what, an engineer will get a job for sure. Nobody seems to notice that for every job opportunity, there is a certain saturation point, after which there are no vacant spots available. Every year, thousands of jobs in the engineering and medical sector are created and every year, even more engineering and medical students graduate from their respective colleges. Applying the simple economic theory of supply and demand, a lot of students are not able to get their desired jobs. These ‘surplus students’ either opt for another degree, such as an MBA, which goes into the tangentially opposite stream of commerce, or get into jobs such as IT or Consultancy firms, that have nothing to do with their field of study. And more often than not, the students, now employees, are dissatisfied with their jobs, wishing for a second chance. All for the want of a degree whose value is less than what is made out to be.

What they don’t tell you.

A leading cause of our obsession with engineers, in addition to our ‘neighbourly rivalry’, is the tag ‘professional degree’. The definition of the term has become so convoluted that it is accepted as a fact. The blame for this lies in part with the recruiters. Yes, the recruiters from various companies, whether they have anything to do with engineers or not, will take engineers into their ranks. The accepted explanation is ‘These people have professional degrees and are adept at taking up jobs as soon as they graduate.’ Even if they are not aware of what their job description is, they seem to think so. Statistics clearly state that an average engineer is more likely to get a job rather than a student who is top of the class with a graduate degree. Such was the case in the VIT recruitments in the year 2009. Their 2008-2009 placements show that around 1200 B.Tech. students were recruited by firms such as Tata Consultancy Services and Cognizant Technology Solutions, whereas students who had completed a Masters degree in Computer Science from the very same institution were left to fend for themselves as these firms would not take them. Why? Because they were not engineers. If such is the discrimination by the companies, one can really not blame the parents for pushing their children to get an engineering degree.

The jobs given by these companies aren’t very satisfying either. Though almost everyone manages to get a job during the campus placements, it is only the top of the crop students who manage to get a job that pays. IIT Kanpur, the country’s premier engineering institution has had less than 15 graduates who have scored jobs that pay more than 10 lakhs per annum. Most of the others earn around 4 lakhs per year and that too after appraisals, and with jobs that hardly suit their liking or field.

What to do?

A major promoter of this propaganda, in addition to the parents and the companies, is our highly utilitarian education system. Ours is a system that promotes the mugging up of facts and hampers one’s creativity and interests. Hence the high amount of interest and reverence towards the field of science and contempt towards arts and commerce. It’s the sort of system Mr. Gradgrind would’ve been proud of. But as the Dickensian character realized the repercussions of his philosophy the hard way; let it not be so with students of our country. They should not be the ones to suffer as a consequence of our faulty education system.

What needs to be done is a total revamp of the ideas that the middle class of our country has. This might seem difficult, but it’s not impossible. It is understandable that the parents care about their progeny, but it does not give them the right to stamp their authority on them. For all you might know, the parents, in following their beliefs, might alienate their own kid, which might lead to him taking a drastic step. This does not call for rebellion either. As mentioned before, independent thought should be encouraged by the parents, so that they can enable their child to live with his/her decisions and not regretting the decisions their parents made for them. This can be achieved by exposing the child to various part time jobs available, so that he/she knows what sort of field they would like to pursue, by getting a feel of the workplace environment. This instils a sense of financial independence, paving way for an independent thought process. Every student should be allowed to explore his/her talents and be given the choice to pursue careers they feel they would be satisfied with. To show them the different options available, schools should carry out career counselling to make their students aware. This, therefore, calls for our schools to be more than just places where one comes to mug up formulae and facts. The onus is on them to truly educate and make their students successful individuals in their own right, where they will be happy and satisfied with their lives. Because a school is where a student is made into the person he will be for the rest of his life. And if he turns out to be one of the million engineers India has without garnering an interest for the subject, ultimately India might stand to lose a great author, painter or even politician for that matter.

The future seems bright, though. The trend in the urban areas shows that more people are opting for commerce and arts every year. And a multitude of them are willing to take risks about their career choices and the parents are letting them have a free reign. Even so, the majority still looks over to the science stream and the professional courses for jobs. Therefore, the thought needs to be cultivated that a career should simply not be the means for money, but something that an individual enjoys doing. The responsibility lies with the parents, and most importantly, our education system.

Resources:-

‘Who were the Shudras?’ by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and development’ from Writings and Speeches Vol. 1. (1979)
CNN IBN report on suicides; dated January 13, 2010.
Placement figures obtained from www.myengg.com/engg/placements, www.vit.ac.in/placement/statistics/companywise09

Exact recruitment figures of VIT for the year 2008-2009:-

TCS- 1075 students recruited

CTS- 138 students recruited

M.Sc. Computer Science students recruited in 2009- 0

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