Inaugurating Nasscom's annual human resources summit in Chennai, the industry body's president Kiran Karnik said though there were lakhs of engineering graduates coming out every year, the industry was not getting "right type of people for right jobs".
The IT and ITeS (Information Technology enabled Services) firms required not only people who had technical skills but also soft skills, he said adding that the educational institutions were now producing "unusable material".
Though the country had embarked upon economic reforms, thought was not given to "drastic educational reforms", leading to the present situation, he said.
He said the universities should be removed from "all clutches" and be given full autonomy in framing curriculum.
"It is ridiculous that the universities should get the permission of University Grants Commission in New Delhi to start new courses. This attitude should be removed," he said.
Innovation and creativity should be the key for the research and development. "Liberate the universities and give them freedom and autonomy," he said. He said the education sector itself has a lot of potential in bringing in valuable foreign exchange.
"Centres of excellence should be created in several parts of the country, where the students from abroad could pursue education. This would bring in lot of foreign exchange," he said.
Karnik was also critical of the present education system. Only a few educational institutions are producing quality students, he said.
Tamil Nadu government IT secretary C Chandramouli said the state would soon come out with a new IT and ITeS policy. "The industry should give inputs to the government for incorporation in the new policy," he said.
Expressing concern over the non-availability of quality teachers in the universities and colleges, he said the best of the students went to serve the industry.
The industry should come out with innovative ideas to retain talent in the teaching profession, which alone could be an answer to the problems, he said.
He said the Tamil Nadu government was ready to start centres of excellence in the state in a bid to produce qualified technical manpower to the specific needs of IT industry.
He said the country's young population was an asset and the industry should cash in on that.