People issues relating to software engineering education and training in India

• Authors: Kirti Garg;Vasudeva Varma
• Venue: ISEC '08 Proceedings of the 1st India software engineering conference
• Year: 2008

Software Engineering (SE) and Information Technology (IT) jobs are the most sought after career options for Indian youth in the recent times. Indian Software industry is expected to grow at a very healthy rate and each major software company has ambitious plans and growth targets for future. However, lack of proper Software Engineering (SE) education may have severe consequences and may negatively affect these growth targets. In this paper we discuss challenges and issues related to software engineering education and training in Indian academia and industry. These are based on our interaction with industry and through our experience as Software engineering educators. These challenges arise from deep rooted issues in Software Engineering educational goals, pedagogy and instruction as well as the infrastructure. We will discuss their long term effects on various aspects of software development. We put forth our suggestions that may handle these challenges to an extent. We also discuss the essential and minimal set of software engineering knowledge, skills and dispositions that the industry requires from young engineers willing to join the industry. This paper provides course designing guidelines for the academia and learning centers of the industry by focusing on important SE education issues, their causes and possible solutions. This, in turn would help to make SE Education more effective and inline with requirements of the Indian Software industry