| Indian school children: can enough of them learn IT skills quickly? |
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The strategic resource that Indian IT companies rely on to grow at the recent cracking rate of 50% a year is the country's pool of 340,000 technical professionals. Yet, if a recent study by consultants McKinsey is to be believed, that pool is not growing fast enough. As more professionals are lured overseas, Indian companies might find themselves faced by a shortage of human resources that could limit growth.
McKinsey's study, conducted between September and December 2000, is based on interviews with the deans of the six elite Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), faculty members, students and alumni, government officials and industry research centres of IBM and GE. It found that demand for Indian IT professionals would grow by 500,000 in five years' time. So by 2005, India's pool of IT professionals will need to grow to 800,000, or about 100,000 each year.