The dissatisfaction level of employers toward engineering graduates‘ skills confirms that a significant share of graduating engineers does not meet employers‘ expected standards. Even if employers demanded unrealistically high skills from graduates, there is a substantial quality gap between institutions (the producers) and employers (the consumers). This quality gap needs to be addressed.

Table 6 below presents the satisfaction level of each skill under the three factors. The level of _Core Employability Skills_ is relatively more satisfying than the other two skill factors. It can be also seen that employers are most satisfied with Communication in English. Further, knowledge of math/science/ engineering and basic computer are at the highest level of satisfaction in _Professional Skills_ . This intuitively makes sense as these skills were some of the main vehicles for the initial success of the India‘s offshore IT business.

In contract, satisfaction of higher-order thinking skills such as problem solving, system design, and experiments/data analysis is at an alarming level—only ― _somewhat satisfied”_ on average. This result reflects the views from many, if not most, firms. During a series of interviews, employers pointed out that most engineering graduates lack these higher order thinking skills, especially problem solving. More detail information of satisfaction level is presented in Table A2-7 in Annex 2.

**Table 6: Satisfaction Level by Three Factors**

|**Core Employability**|**Mean **|**Professional Skills**|**Mean **|**Communication Skills**|**Mean **|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Integrity|3.50|Apply Math/Sci/Engg know.|3.23|Communication in English|3.95|
|Teamwork|3.46|Use of modern tools|3.15|Basic computer|3.34|
|Entrepreneurship|3.44|Creativity|3.08|Written Communication|3.22|
|Self-discipline|3.37|System design to needs|2.95|Verbal Communication|3.17|
|Willingness to learn|3.37|Contemporary issues|2.95|Technical Skills|3.13|
|Flexibility|3.29|Problem solving|2.87|Reading|3.08|
|Reliability|3.20|Customer Service|2.65|Advanced computer|3.03|
|Empathy|3.15|||Experiments/data analysis|3.02|
|Self-motivated|3.12|||||
|Understand/take||||||
|directions|3.12|||||
|**Average**|**3.30**|**Average**|**2.98**|**Average**|**3.24**|

We compare the satisfaction levels with findings from a US employer survey of engineering graduates. The results of the two surveys should be interpreted with caution, for two main reasons: (i) The survey questionnaires differed slightly. The US employers were asked to rate five combined types of skills on a three point scale, while the Indian employers were rating using a five point scale on a series of individual skills (these differences were not present for the importance questions analyzed above); (ii) satisfaction rates depend critically upon the respondent‘s expectations. For example, it may be that the competences of the Indian and the US graduates are identical, but the Indian employers have high expectations than the US employers, and the former is therefore less satisfied.

The results tentatively suggest that Indian employers are less satisfied with their graduates compared to the US employers‘ assessment of their graduates. The Indian employers are 20