English a must for students

Majority of students opt for engineering after their intermediate, but a recent survey says that, as many as 97 per cent of these graduates can hardly converse in English. English plays a vital role in the career of young graduates who dream to survive in the corporate world.

There are many students who are left with no proper job just because they lack good communication skills. As most of the companies are tied up with multinational giants, English fluency has become a must. Ananta Lakshmi, head of English department from CVSR College of Engineering reveals the reason behind why English as a subject is ignored in engineering colleges,

“Engineering college students come from varied background and, these students tend to opt a common tongue to interact with each other and thereby the preference for English will vanish and the same goes with few faculty members while teaching. Secondary reason is that students hailing from urban background develop over confidence which restricts English in to a mere scoring subject”.

“Students don’t need to master the language but they should definitely know basic level which will fill in their needs to survive in the corporate world. School teachers should always remind students’ importance of English and it should be mandatory to communicate in English, but engineering is definitely not a place where faculty makes mandatory rules for students to converse in English.” She adds candidly.

There are few universities like Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Kakinada who believes engineering is all about learning technical skills and crossed out English in the academic list for all the students except in the first semester academic schedule of engineering which actually has English for more than 3 semesters.

“These kinds of conclusions will have a huge impact on the students and they will be left unconnected with the most needed language. On the other hand there are universities like SRM, VIT etc who have highly qualified faculty to train and enhance their talent in language and professional skills” Says Ananta Lakshmi.

“Everyone have the potential to do something better than others but the way one conveys and projects their ideas plays a pivotal role and determines the difference between their success and failure. Most of us consider English as a subject just before the day of exam.

But the real importance of English is understood while the recruitment process and also during entrance exams to pursue higher studies. Communication skills now a days have equal importance to that of technical skills” says Rahul Gopal, Engineering graduate. M G Rali, Technical HR of a software company in Hyderabad, says “Language plays a paramount part to express oneself and the knowledge which student possess.

Students with low communication skills are seldom given any chance in recruitment. Technically competent students with low communication skills are not often given opportunities. If we consider knowledge as water in the tank than communication is a pipe (channel) that allows the water to flow through. Language is a primary key for company success as students generally tend to visit the clients who are not just restricted to their office premises.”

By:BHAGYA SHREE KOTTOORI