LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 14:4 April 2014
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Soft Skills:
A Professional Development Curriculum to Enhance
the Employability of Engineering Students

Dr. M. Renuga, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.
S. Ezhilan, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. Candidate

Abstract

The issue of employability of professional students has become very serious and critical in many countries including India. The biggest challenge facing institutions of technical education is to develop employable skills, enhance knowledge and make engineering students more attractive to employers. Though the standard of academia has been steadily moving ahead, the updating process of curriculum with respect to soft skills is not as fast as expected by the industries. Hence a framework is needed to develop creative and innovative ways to give the engineering students a competitive edge. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to develop a professional curriculum to enhance the employability of engineering students, especially identifying modules of soft skills with the perspective of the employers, placement professionals, corporate trainers and observations from the newspapers and job websites on job opportunities. The authors studied related research papers and held a series of discussions with the experts of soft skills. The findings and discussions suggest that (i) Engineering institutions should recognize the importance of soft skills, (ii) integrate important modules of soft skills in the engineering curriculum, (iii) integrate higher-order skills and (iv) interact more with employers of the region or sector to understand the particular demand for skills.

Keywords - Engineering education, soft skills, curriculum, modules and components

1. Introduction

Currently, employability is the buzzword among the engineering students. During the last decade, the opportunities for engineering students in various sectors have increased multifold globally. Current technological and economic changes have created a challenging context for engineering students. The real key to the effectiveness of engineering students is their ability to put their domain knowledge into effective practice and soft skills have a crucial role to play for the effectiveness. The challenge for technical institutions is to work out a healthy balance between the wholeness of knowledge and skill sets that cater to current technological demand. In many countries including India, the issue of incorporating soft skills into the curriculum taught to engineering students in technical institutions has gained momentum in recent years.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Dr. M. Renuga, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.
Professor of English and Head of Languages and Sciences
Sona College of Technology
Salem 636005
Tamilnadu
India
mrenuravi@yahoo.com

S. Ezhilan, M.A., M. Phil., (Ph.D.) Corresponding Author
Professor of English
Jayam College of Engineering and Technology
Dharmapuri 636 813
Tamilnadu
India
profezhilan@gmail.com
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