efforts are necessary to raise the skill set of engineering graduates in India through an improvement in the quality of engineering education. We particularly recommend that each engineering program explicitly states and measures the desired learning outcomes (the skill set of their graduate). The accreditation agency, NBA, in particular could have a tremendously important impact if it increased the weight of graduates‘ learning outcomes compared to other input-oriented accreditation criteria (such as classroom and curricula). Also, while the results may appear gloomy, reforms and quality improvements programs have successfully taken place at individual state and institutional level. There are several success stories, see Annex 4 for the Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme. What is required is a scale-up of the reforms and investments at the national level addressing the shortcomings in the skill set of engineers.

**The skills set of engineers can be characterized by three overall skills factors** :

- (i) _Core Employability Skills_ (which cover generic attitudinal and affective skills, such as reliability and team-work);

- (ii) _Communication Skills_ (such as English skills, written and verbal communication) _,_ and

- (iii) _Professional Skills_ (which generally covers cognitive skills related to the engineering professions, such as ability to apply engineering knowledge; as well as design and conduct experiments and related data analyze and interpretation).

These skill factors are similar to findings from other employer surveys. _Core Employability Skills_ and _Communications Skills_ are often referred to as soft skills. The factors also have important similarities with theoretical skill domains developed in the educational literature. These three skill factors are therefore appropriate to use for further analysis.

**All three skills factors are important-** **_Core Employability Skills_ ,** **_Communication Skills_ and** **_Professional Skills_ are important.** Engineers that are in high demand possess all three skills sets. Engineering education programs therefore have to put in place a comprehensive quality upgrade of their programs.

However, while _Professional Skills_ remain important **, employers consider** **_Soft Skills_ (** **_Core Employability Skills_ and** **_Communication Skills_ ) the most important skills.** Employers look for engineering graduates who show integrity, are reliable, can work well in teams and are willing to learn.

**Further, employers across India ask for a similar set of soft skills** . Irrespective of the size of the company, the economic sector, or the region, the above _Soft Skills_ (integrity, reliability, teamwork and willingness to learn) remain the important ones.

The policy implication is the need to improve the _Soft Skills_ of graduates. This could come about by: (i) Colleges and teachers recognizing that _Soft Skills_ are important and include soft skills as part of the desired learning objectives that teachers should foster in their students. Technical knowledge and applicability are fundamental to engineering education; however, they are not all. Student‘s soft skills need to be honed as well; (ii) The National Accreditation Board could enhance the importance given to soft skills in the Program Outcomes; For example, NBA does not explicitly include ―team working skills‖ as an expected skill for an engineering graduate; (iii) The teaching-learning process could be 27