Breaking over years of tradition, freshly minted engineers from highly rated Indian Institute of Technology, turned down international job offers. Data reveals that not even 200, from an approximate 10,000 students from the schools took up positions outside India, last year.
"Compared to 20 years ago, a very small percentage of students go abroad today. This is contrary to the general perception. Twenty years ago, 80 per cent of the Btech class used to go abroad. Now these numbers are insignificant," said IIT-Delhi director V Ramgopal Rao. Fifty students will go abroad from IIT-Bombay, 40 from Delhi, 25 from Kharagpur, 19 from Kanpur, 13 from Madras, 17 from Roorkee and 5 from Guwahati. Numbers were considerably larger last year, even if not much different. "When we asked companies why they were coming to campus with fewer offers, they said that their requirement was lower and profiles too had changed," said Professor Kaustubha Mohanty, convenor of the All-IIT Placement Committee. However, Chair professor at IIT-Bombay, Deepak Phatak said the real question is how many IITians applied for international jobs. "A large number of our students are not seeking jobs outside India."
In fact Phatak was concerned about the quality of graduates when international offers started dwindling a few years ago. "So I conducted exit interviews and found that students perceive that the land of opportunity is here," he said. Moreover, with global companies setting up offices in India, students can join Google in Bengaluru instead of Mountain View, California.
In the early '90s, the outflow of computer science graduates to the US was so high that the World Bank, in a report, had suggested that an exit tax be imposed on IITians and other professionals leaving the country - this, it said, could earn the government over $1 billion per annum. This year, the US which used to attract most candidates has been pipped by Japan. For instance, 35 students from IIT-B are headed far east as compared to 10 who are going to the US.
