Dismal job market pushes engineering graduates to teaching

It was like paying guru dakshina for Amardeep Aklujkar when he started teaching at his alma mater, Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology (Rait), Nerul.

However, this was not a voluntary decision. Aklujkar, who completed his fourth-year computer engineering last year, was compelled to take up teaching by a not-so-encouraging job market.

“Last year, the campus placements were not upto the expectations due to recession. Many of us did not get satisfactory offers from the industry. Then one of my professors told me that
I could join as a teacher in my college,” said Aklujkar, who joined Rait as an assistant lecturer in September, last year.

Like Aklujkar, many others have taken up the role of a teacher in their respective colleges. Shivkumar Khosla has also joined Rait as an assistant lecturer. “There is dearth of faculty in engineering colleges. This was a good opportunity to get some experience
before the market opens up,” he said.

The trend is not restricted to engineering colleges alone. Darshana Sail, 22, a hotel management graduate from the Institute of Technology and Management (ITM), Kharghar, has joined her college to teach food processing.

“Although I graduated in April last year, there was no fresh recruitment happening in the industry. I was jobless till the later part of the year. It was then when my professor suggested that I start teaching,” she said.

Educationists are of the idea that this trend is here to stay. “There is always a demand for teachers in engineering and management colleges. Graduates expect big companies to offer them huge salaries and refuse to work with small organisations. They arethen forced to take up teaching,” said KA Vishwanathan, trustee of the SIES group of colleges.

The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Tiss) is also witnessing a similar situation. Even students doing their first-year management are looking at teaching as an option until the market opens up.

“However, teaching should not be considered an easy job,” warns Dr Sharit Bhowmik, dean, School of Management, Tiss.