How much money does an auto driver make ?

A couple of days ago as it was raining I was not very enthusiastic to drive to work so I decided to go in an auto. The driver of my auto was a pretty chatty kind of a person and I engaged him in a conversation that I was wanting to have with one of them for a long time - how much money does an auto driver make in a day?

Apparently an auto driver makes about Rs. 150 a day and if it is a good day he will make Rs. 200 and this is after paying off the rent and the petrol for the auto. So I asked him what is the rent - it is Rs. 120 for a petrol auto and Rs. 200 for an LPG auto. How much does it cost to buy a new auto - About Rs. 150,000 and if it has to be converted to LPG an extra Rs. 20,000.

Contrary to popular belief this driver said that the police never bother him as long as he does not break a traffic rule. So it looks like the auto drivers complaining about police being highhanded as one of the reasons for them striking is to just make sure that they can break any rule and the police should not do anything to them - something the city bus drivers enjoy just now.

Software Training Institutes

Having lamented about the quality of software training institutes in the city in an earlier article, I had the opportunity to experience the kind of education being dished out by these institutions.

We needed to fill some positions very quickly a few days ago and not having much luck with walk-ins and other forms of recruitment we decided to go to some of the institutes and see if they had anything to offer. We contacted a few of them and they were more than willing to accommodate us to come to their institute and conduct interviews to recruit. So we decided to hold a test which consisted of a couple of simple school assignment kind software programs and an essay of 100 words. We administered the test for a 100 people and we short listed just 6 out of the 100 only to realize that the 6 that we short listed were unfit too. It was an absolute waste of time and effort.

What was wrong with them? To put it in a nutshell - 90 % of them could not even write 10 lines of code. The ones that could write the 10 lines of code could not write 10 lines of decent English. So what are these institutes teaching these so called students? If you ask me from my experience I would say NOTHING!!!

I know this is a very drastic answer to give but I strongly believe that they are teaching them NOTHING and this is why I say that - none of them knew the basics of computers - we were recruiting for C# and we asked them to write a program to sort 'n' numbers and they could not write that program. If there was 1 or 2 that could not write it after attending a training program of 3 months I will believe the course thought something but when you have 90 % of those that took the test have no idea where to start writing the program then I have every right to say that the course taught NOTHING !!!

These institutes are in my opinion creating hope in students when there is none. They spend thousands of rupees getting trained on everything under the sun without knowing the basics or having the inclination to code. I had the opportunity to look at one course being offered and out of 10 modules being taught 7 of them are mostly add-ons or advanced topics that are rarely used in projects. These students are spending 70 % of their time doing stuff they will never use. Secondly when the student does not understand the basics which are 30 % of the course there is no use teaching the remaining 70 % which depends on the 30 %. Hence the whole course is a waste!!!

There are a few that do get out of these institutes and do get good jobs - these are the ones that had the aptitude and inclination to write code and only needed the knowledge. I would call this the gifted lot and I will not put this as being more than 5 % of those being trained.

What is this doing to the industry? In my opinion - its doing immeasurable harm to the industry. The reasons being

• There is a whole segment of so called trained work force being created that is useless to the industry and the industry wastes hours and hours sifting through this lot.
• A whole lot of so called trained work force is getting disillusioned by the lack of jobs available to them. This in turn creates a bad reputation for the industry that it is picky.
• There is a shortfall of good resources in the industry because this so called trained work force has not been trained right.

What is the solution? First of all the institutes need to align their courses to what the industry needs. The industry should create a legitimate grass root training programs by tying up with educational institutions. Let the education that these students get in school and college train them to be fit to code the day they join. If we do this I am sure we will go a long way in making off shoring a dream that will never end and effectively remove all competition from other countries.

Sorry for the long silence

Sorry about not putting up anything for so long but there was and is a lot happening in my life that has prevented me from putting up anything meaningful.

For those of you that do read my blog I will be back soon with some new articles of some of my good and not so good experiences of late so stay tuned in.

A lovely moonlit night from my house. 

Pictures from Shilparamam

Here are some of the pictures that I took from Shilparamam during the Dusshera festivities that happened there. These are some performances that were happening in the shopping area.

Computer Training in Institutes - boon or bane ?

Hyderabad is becoming a haven for training institutes that can teach you anything under the sun. Some of the questions that I would like to explore in this entry are - What is the quality of these institutes? What are the reasons for these institutes to thrive in this city? Are these institutes good for the image of the software industry in the city? Let me now try and give you my views on each of these questions.

What is the quality of these institutes?
The quality in most of these institutes that thrive in and around the Ameerpet area is bad. I was one of the unfortunate ones that had to endure a one weeks training from a faculty from one of these institutes. The organization that I was working for was looking to train a bunch of developers on Microfocus COBOL and this course was not being offered by any of the recognized training institutes. We then found one institute in Ameerpet that was supposedly doing the course in their institute and was willing to do a one week course for us. The faculty that came consisted of some very junior COBOL programmers that had textbook knowledge of Microfocus COBOL and by the third day agreed that they were just teaching us what was in a Microfocus Manual. Some of the faculty who I have met that teach in these institutes have no real world knowledge of what they are teaching and also are of a quality that will not get jobs in the industry. Given that this is the quality why do people flock to these institutes and that brings me to my second question.

What are the reasons for these institutes to thrive in this city?
The main reason these institutes thrive in the city is because there is a need that these institutes are meeting. The need is for training in the software world that is not imparted in our colleges and universities and students believing that once they are trained in that skill it’s a ticket to see the world. It’s so unfortunate that most of the people that go to these institutes just do course after course hoping that one of these courses will get them that ticket to ‘nirvana’. I once had a guy who walked in for an interview and he said that he knew Java, I told him that I did not have any openings in Java and that I had openings in .Net and that if he had any of his friends that knew .Net he could refer them, this lad then asked me if he had to learn .Net and I sat with him for the next half hour explaining why he had to stick to Java and master it since he had already trained himself in Java for 6 months and had to just wait for the break.

The other reason these institutes thrive is because the industry wants people with experience and there are only so many experience people floating around so there is a shortage in the industry. What these institutes do is that they train the candidate in a skill, they then cook up projects to show that they have been working with them for the last couple of years or so and they then send these candidates to recognized software development houses around the city for interviews and get them placed earning a fee from the candidate for guaranteed placement and earning a fee from the software development house for being a consultant. Now these so called experienced candidates when they are placed in situations where you hope their experience will help the project get done come up lacking miserably and there by affecting the credibility of the organization and the industry as a whole. Coming to my last question

Are these institutes good for the image of the software industry in the city?

I have just two words to say “Absolutely Not!!!” I think I have given enough reasons till now to substantiate why I have such a strong view towards these institutes.

What can we do to stop this? Shutting them down by force is not the answer. We should cut out their livelihood and that is the students from going to them.

First of all I think the Universities and Colleges should change their curriculum to keep up with the industry. There is no use teaching subjects like COBOL, Pascal, dBase, Lotus 1-2-3, DOS and so on. The universities and colleges should work with the industry to understand the needs of the industry when coming up with the curriculum for the courses. That way the industry gets trained candidates that can be productive as soon as they join.

Secondly the universities and colleges in association with the industry should offer courses that are one off such as a course in “The Java Programming Language” as opposed to “Basic Java” or “J2EE Course” as opposed to “Advanced Java” that is offered by the institutes. These courses should be conducted by trained staff from the industry and should lead to certification by the relevant bodies in the industry. That way the education centers continue to play the role that they are meant to play and churn out students that are aware of the technologies that are needed by the industry.

Funny number plate