The percentage of employable Indian graduates is declining at an alarming rate every year and it calls for urgent attention. This issue should be addressed immediately and effectively to ensure that India can maintains its competitive advantage in terms of qualified graduates. The present higher education in India has failed to keep up with the changes across the world.

Less importance on reforms in education

The economic growth in India was expected to create millions of opportunities through educating people and enabling them to work on different jobs. Though India started to liberalize its economy from 1991, little attention was paid to the education field in terms of introducing reforms to the highly regulated education system in the country.

Bureaucracy and rote learning to be blamed

Experts from the industries say that the education institutions in India are severely affected by bureaucracy and dependence on rote learning rather than critical thinking and comprehension. In India the government was successful in providing education at lower fees, which makes education accessible to most of the students. But they have failed to provide better salary to the teachers even though they have a high budget for the education sector.

Statistics on employability in India

A forecast made by McKinsey has observed that the Indian factories will need more than 73 million workers by 2015. This will be 50 per cent more than what is existing today. A report published by NASSCOM has found a disturbing trend. It states that only twenty five per cent of the total B.Tech graduates in the country are employable. This observation was made on the basis of the technical skills, communicative skills, team work and presentation skills. Out of the 4 lakh engineers who pass out from various engineering colleges across the country, only one lakh of them are fit in terms of working with a company.

In the case of other graduates the situation is worse. Only 15 per cent of the total graduates in the country are employable.

The primary education in rural India

A study conducted by Pratham has found a far more disturbing scenario.  Pratham is a non governmental organization focusing on improving the quality of primary education in the rural areas of the country. The recent study conducted by them covered 13,000 schools in the rural area in the country. It has observed that more than 50 per cent of the students in the 5th grade were not able to read and comprehend lessons of 2nd and 3rd grade.

This is going to affect the growth of the country very badly. The Indian economy is expected to grow at a rate of 9 per cent. India is considered as a location for low cost business, but with the shortage of labor, the cost is expected to rise.

The largest youth population, but majority is unemployable

India is home to the world’s largest youth population as compared to China and United States. More than 50 per cent of the total Indian population is under the age of 25. It is expected that about one million people will look for jobs to be a part of the work force over the next 10 years. In the present condition if majority of these people who are not properly trained to be employable join the country’s work force, it is going to affect the stability of the country.

Reforms too slow

Even though the industry and the government raise the issue of employee shortage, the proposed reforms in the field of education are still in the process of waiting. There is little effort to transform the reforms into law. For instance the bill to give greater flexibility in the preparation of curriculum for institutions is expected in the cabinet and in parliament this year.

Rising demand for skilled labor

In India there is an increasing demand for skilled labor. For instance TCS plans to hire 65,000 employees this year. In the case of TCS, they provide training for a duration of 72 days, which is twice the period of training in 1986. Such training helps in closing the gap between the requirements and skills of the graduates. In the case of Wipro the duration of the training extends to 90 days.

Skills essential to be employable

Improving the employability is a major concern that requires immediate attention. There are many factors that organizations look in a candidate during the process of selection. Communications skill is an important one among them. The success of a graduate lies in his ability to express his or her thoughts effectively to an individual or a group. This ability is an important criterion which decides the performance of the individual in a group. Even if the candidate has the required technical skill, he or she might be rejected in an interview due to the lack of communicative skills.

Problem solving skill is another ability that most of the recruiters look for. Since the present day world is evolving so fast, organizations look for candidates who consider change and problems as challenges and not as problems that do not have solutions. Organizations today need candidates who come up with creative solutions that they face in the day to day business.

Another important quality that recruiters look for is the personal effectiveness. It is widely accepted that people who are emotionally matured, who understand themselves and others in the work place will be competent enough to handle the organizational dynamics.

Other skills that are required include time management, conflict management, goal setting and the ability to work in a team.

One possible solution

The best possible solution for this is to develop an industry-academic interaction programme, where the students will have the opportunity to work on live projects in the organization, which helps them to understand the requirements in any organization in terms of skills. This will act as some kind of training, based on which the organizations can even offer employment to these candidates. For the candidates, this will be an opportunity to improve their employability, while this will ensure continuous flow of man power for the organizations.