Only 1.4 percent can write functionally correct and efficient code. More than 60 percent candidates cannot even write code that compiles. Only 4.77 percent candidates can write the correct logic for a program, a minimum requirement for any programming job. Programming skills is five times poorer for third tier colleges as compared to tier 1 colleges.
In an ecosystem with a huge IT industry as backdrop and aspirations in data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning, over 95 percent engineers in India have been found unemployable for software development jobs. For the first time anywhere in the world, a large-scale study of the programming skills based on a simulated test of programming has been done. Over 36,000 engineering students form IT related branches from over 500 colleges took
Automata - a Machine Learning based assessment of software development skills – and over two thirds couldn’t even write code that compiles.
The study further gives insight in what percent candidates can write maintainable code with good programming practices and how many implementations are efficient. The IT industry requires maintainable code so that it is less prone to bug, is readable, reusable and extensible. Time efficient code runs fast. Automata is the only tool which grades codes on such parameter automatically. The study finds only 1.4 percent candidates can write maintainable and efficient code.
The employability gap – as highlighted in the Automata National Programming Skills Report - can be attributed to rote learning based approaches rather than actually writing programs on a computer for different problems. Also, there is a dearth of good teachers for programming, since most good programmers get jobs in industry at good salaries.
Low employability of engineers in programming can impede the carefully built growth story of coding and Data Science in the Indian IT Industry, and needs immediate intervention. The National Programming Report by Aspiring Minds - a global assessments solution company - is a first of-its-kind large scale study on programming students, and is a sincere attempt to bring focus on the employability of candidates on these skills.
“Lack of programming skills is adversely impacting the IT and data science ecosystem in India. To highlight the need to skill graduates with practical coding skills, the Automata report on programming focuses on bringing this issue to the forefront. It not only looks at student’s ability to write functionally correct code, but also their programming practices and algorithmic understanding.
These are essential for the industry. The universities need to look into the problem of lack of programming skills immediately. The school curriculum focusing on MS-Word, Powerpoint, Excel, etc. rather teaching programming using elementary languages such as Basic and Logo is also the culprit. The world is moving towards introducing programming to three years old! India needs to catch up,” said Varun Aggarwal, CTO and cofounder of Aspiring Minds, and the brain behind Automata – the world's most advanced and only programming assessment that uses Machine Learning for grading programs.
