Ranking Computer Institutes

The mushrooming of computer training institutes continues unabated and the situation is far more complex than it was a few years ago. Five years ago, mushrooming was a phenomena restricted only to private training shops. Nowadays it encompasses all sorts of players, including those recognized by the AICTE and affiliated to virtually every university in India. What makes matters worse is that the quality of education at the average training shop is inversely proportional to the clock speed of the CPU found in the average desktop, what I (modestly) call Gautama Ahuja’s Law.

In these confusing times one needs a simple method of ranking computer institutes. I present one below. The method calls for measuring the percentage of aspiring programmers who can perform the following tasks. Institutes are ranked by the success of their students. The tasks are presented in increasing order of complexity.

• Task 1: Load stationery into a dot-matrix printer. The candidate should be able to do a reasonable job with both continuous and cut stationery.

• Task 2: Use the Command Prompt to perform tasks such as copying or deleting files. The candidate should be able to use wild cards such as ‘*’ and ‘?’ in the task.

• Task 3: Navigate the directory structure through the Command Prompt. Navigation should be natural and not through trial and error.

• Task 4: Explain the difference between a text and binary file.

• Task 5: Print out a spreadsheet with 300 rows and 20 columns. The output must be well formatted, legible and easy to read.

• Task 6: Write SQL queries consisting of joins on two simple tables.

• Task 7: Explain the difference between formal and actual parameters in a subroutine.

• Task 8: Write a program to print the largest and second largest number in a list. Sorting the list and printing the first two numbers is explicitly prohibited.

• Task 9: Write a program to detect whether a specified string occurs in another string. Use of library routines is prohibited.

• Task 10: Write a program to convert numbers into words.

• Task 11: Write a program that produces a neatly formatted report. The contents of the report are immaterial, the candidate should be able to produce output with headings, page breaks, page numbers, and the like.

I assure you that I am not joking. I am fed up of meeting aspiring programmers who claim to have been trained in object-oriented programming techniques but cannot do simple structured programming. Of meeting people who have done advanced courses in database administration but cannot write simple queries. Of stories of instructors without programming experience teaching advanced software-design courses. Things are fast reaching the stage where companies will have to run year-long training courses to retrain entry-level people.

The bottom line: Training quality at teaching shops is deteriorating day by day. Employers and students must put their foot down.

Gautama Ahuja runs a turnkey software company, AHC Infotek