Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran has challenged the long-held belief that engineering and MBA degrees automatically guarantee a prosperous career, stating that the old premium attached to such qualifications is vanishing in the age of artificial intelligence. His remarks, made in a recent commentary, have sparked debate on the future of higher education and employment in India.
AI Reshaping the Job Market
Nageswaran pointed out that the globalisation-era formula of obtaining an engineering degree, learning to code, and pursuing an MBA to secure a white-collar job is no longer reliable. AI is fundamentally altering the economics of routine cognitive work, enabling one experienced employee assisted by AI tools to perform tasks that previously required dozens of freshers. The first impact, he noted, may not be mass layoffs but a silent closure of entry gates, as evidenced by the recent drop in hiring by IT companies.
Not an Obituary for Engineering
Despite the warning, Nageswaran emphasised that India does not need fewer engineers; it needs different engineers. Civil engineering, for instance, will remain central to India's infrastructure development, including roads, bridges, ports, railways, water systems, housing, and climate-resilient cities. A modern civil engineer must understand climate risk, water stress, urban flooding, green materials, GIS mapping, project finance, and lifecycle maintenance. Similarly, mechanical and electrical engineers need skills in robotics, precision manufacturing, storage, grids, and renewable integration, while computer engineers must move beyond coding to systems thinking, data architecture, cybersecurity, and AI applications.
Redesigning MBA Education for Local Governance
The same applies to MBAs. India needs more people with analytical and managerial skills, but in places where they are rarely found today. Nageswaran proposed strengthening district planning offices with young professionals trained in economics, management, public finance, statistics, GIS, infrastructure planning, and social sector delivery. Instead of producing generic MBAs chasing corporate jobs, he suggested creating roles such as district development analysts, municipal finance associates, procurement specialists, health systems managers, education data officers, and climate adaptation officers. Such teams could transform local governance and create meaningful public-purpose jobs.
Curriculum Reform Must Align with Job Design
Nageswaran stressed that curriculum reform must go hand-in-hand with job design. If colleges teach climate-resilient construction but public works departments recruit using old criteria, nothing changes. If MBA students learn data analytics but district administrations have no posts for outcome monitoring or GIS mapping, the skill is wasted. Education reform without job reform becomes another certificate factory.
Skilled Trades Need Social Dignity
The CEA also called for taking skilled trades seriously—welding, plumbing, carpentry, electrical work, caregiving, nursing, hospitality, and culinary skills—which involve human presence, judgment, dexterity, and trust, making them less replaceable by AI. However, he cautioned against simplistic comparisons with Germany, Switzerland, Japan, or South Korea, where skilled trades are respected due to centuries-old institutions like guilds, chambers, apprenticeships, and licensing norms. India lacks such an ecosystem; its labour force remains overwhelmingly informal, and a trade skill does not automatically translate into dignity or income security. The recent unrest among industrial workers in Noida and Gurugram-Manesar, protesting for monthly wages of around Rs 20,000, underscores the precarious conditions faced by factory workers.
Graduate Unemployment and the Government Job Obsession
Nageswaran highlighted India's graduate unemployment crisis, where millions of young graduates prepare for competitive exams instead of working or gaining experience. The government job has become a lottery ticket, and the coaching class a waiting room. This is a rational response to a labour market where private entry-level jobs are poorly paid and insecure, while government jobs offer decent salary, status, security, and social insurance.
Universities Must Embrace AI as a Partner
While universities have been declared dead due to the internet, MOOCs, bootcamps, the pandemic, and AI tutors, higher education has expanded massively. The real issue is whether universities will use AI as a partner in learning rather than treating it as a cheating device.
A Path Forward: Dignity for All Careers
Nageswaran's warning is not an obituary for degrees but a call to redesign them. Trade skills need to be formalised and bestowed with social dignity. India's job crisis will not be solved by replacing one social obsession with another. It will be solved when a young Indian can become a civil engineer, coder, nurse, chef, welder, district planner, technician, teacher, entrepreneur, or civil servant—and each path carries dignity, income, security, and mobility.
