Need for New-Age Programming Language Skills

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Considering the latest technology available today, language should hardly be a barrier.

But within the world that builds technology, there is a curious trend—programmers who are proficient in new languages are preferred over those that are stuck to traditional ones. Unfortunately, data show that a large percentage of the student population in India has established its comfort zone in coding in the languages of the past.
Coding is an art, but for the art to be useful in a business context, embracing the right language is critical.

Knowing the latest tools provides students the head start to try their hand at starting a venture. The examples are already building up: Ather, an electric two-wheeler that is in the pipeline, was a result of the student curriculum in IIT Madras’ engineering design course. Online doctor appointment scheduler Practo was born out of NIT Suratkal.
According to a survey of coding preferences in India and the United States by recruitment platform, HackerRank:

• About 30% of Indians surveyed still code in C++,
• Meanwhile, United States has already taken the leap to Java and Python

While there is technically nothing wrong in knowing one language over the other, the advantages of knowing the right language are many: better pay, better opportunities, and for India, a better industry-ready workforce.

In the United States, Java rules the sector with 25%, closely followed by Python. In comparison, a fifth of the people surveyed lean towards Java in India.

To know why, let us take a look at the computer science syllabus of Visvesvaraya Technological University, which governs at least 196 engineering colleges in Karnataka:

• C and C++ are taught as full-time courses, while critical industry requirements like Java, artificial intelligence and game theory are cast away as electives.

Electives in engineering colleges are a one-off affair, a snapshot of a new world that students may choose if they are interested. Not surprisingly, the interest for the course remains limited to the duration of that course.

Natural language processing and Python are nowhere in the syllabus. In contrast, the computer science divisions of IIT Delhi and Bombay show a fair mix of courses that are of relevance in the real world today.

This links to the bigger problem of students not being job-ready at a time when India cannot get enough of its technologists. Infosys boasts of a massive campus in Mysore. However, what it might really imply is, ‘We need a big space to train all the graduates before they are job-ready.’

In India, the non-IIT institutions are already at a disadvantage: employers, parents and even Ivy League universities all root for the IITians. By not equipping their students with the right tools, these colleges are only widening the gap further.

If the higher education sector doesn’t act fast, Indian engineering talent is in the danger of stagnating within the services arms of large technology firms. And the much hyped Make-in-India campaign will continue to just remain a dream.