Skill And Employment Focused Higher Education: The Need Of The Hour

Every year a new bunch of graduates is produced by higher education institutions across the country. Unfortunately, from the general pool of graduates across all streams, only 25% have employable skills*. With a total enrollment of 36.6 million, surprisingly the Indian higher education institutions seem to be inept at making students job-ready and instilling in them the required skills.

Universities Implementing Employment Focused Education

Just 4.69% of the Indian workforce is formally skilled. The education system of today needs not just a formal degree but also recognition of individual skills, which would help in providing ample job opportunities to graduates. Developing and enhancing the skills of students makes them work-ready and equips them with all that they need to face the professional world efficiently.

At AISECT, we took pioneering initiatives in this area years ago. At our higher education institutions, we have integrated skills’ training within the course curriculum and have introduced compulsory credits for skills. While studying at any of our universities, students are required to take up at least one skill course per semester. So, by the time a student graduates, he/she has 5-6 skills handy. This is a practice that needs to be adopted by higher education institutions across the country.

Research & Education

A well-organized education system is one which has a good research system with cutting edge technologies that produces a skilled workforce. Research plays an important part in education as well as in industries. Countries with world-class education models produce skilled manpower while having parallelly built their research capability.

In a country like India, which is the fastest growing large economy in the world and as per Prime Minister Narendra Modi could be the world’s second-largest economy by 2030, a competent and adept workforce can act as real drivers of the economy and push the nation towards greater success. 

The following article has been written by Pallavi Rao Chaturvedi, Executive Vice President, AISECT Group and Governing Body Member, AISECT Group of Universities.