Promoting 21st Century Workplace Preparedness of Engineering Students: Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions

Abstract

The conspicuous transition in the employment sector has entailed employers to expect employees with pragmatic, autonomous, and dynamic skill sets. However, the engineers in India have been under-trained with the requisite skill set to exhibit constructive outcomes in the present competitive world. This paper expounds on the predominance of Life and Career skills in capacity building of engineering students with adequate skills to sustain the transforming 21st-century workplace demands. On this account, the paper examines the perceptions of students and teachers on integrating Life and Career skills in the English syllabus of the Engineering curriculum for the workplace preparedness of the students. An online survey was conducted between July and August 2019 to obtain the perceptions of 1048 students of engineering and 34 teachers of English from the Engineering Institutes affiliated with Pondicherry University. The findings have exhibited the assertion on the efficacy of Life and Career skills in empowering engineering students with flexibility, self-direction, cross-cultural, productivity, etc., skills. The results imply the desideratum of these skills set in the engineering curriculum for Industry-ready students to meet the demands of the 21st-century workplace.