With changing times, job sectors are undergoing rapid transformation while employability still remains a major area of concern. Indian education system continues to function in the same archaic way, and does not take into account the needs of the industry. The curriculum lags by a decade and does not prepare the generation for the present or the future jobs. There is a need to adopt industry-academia linkages at a rapid pace to address the employability gap.
In India, there are twenty million students in physical classrooms, three million part of distance learning and another 0.3 million undergoing apprenticeship. These forms of learning are creating a limited impact but a form of learning which is inclusive of online, on-site, on-the-job and on-campus learning methods is the need of the hour.
Restructuring the learning process around the curriculum will pave the way to raise employability in the country and familiarise youth with the concepts used in the current landscape.
It is high time for corporates and universities to come together and design the curriculum in accordance with the requirements of the industry and create specific modules as per the job roles. Placement percentage is often used to gauge the efficacy of education. Therefore, the way learning is imparted needs to evolve to facilitate both theoretical understanding and application of conceptual knowledge and address the demands of both the employee and the employer.
Interventions
In the past few years, government has come up with various policy level interventions aiming to make business environment more conducive while opening more forums for skilling and upskilling. Many initiatives like Skill India, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, Prime Minister Fellowship Scheme, National Teacher Platform (Diksha), Scheme for Higher Education Youth in Apprenticeship and Skills (Shreyas) have been introduced to address gaps, raise quality and encourage talent.
These initiatives clubbed with recent amendments in University Grants Commission regulations like opening up higher education institutes for online courses and introduction of new eligibility norms for deemed-to-be-university status are reassuring.
While many initiatives have been undertaken in the right direction, however, there is still a need to further revamp both the way learning and knowledge is imparted. In our country, education has to be made a catalyst in leveraging and further thrusting the
socio-economic growth.
With the startup culture flourishing in India, many players have entered into the education sector offering solutions across the spectrum and a lot more initiatives are being undertaken to make the journey from learning to earning more effective and efficient.
While the course restructuring process may take time to bring out an effective blended learning module, it is vital that more industry players come forward and join hands with universities at the right time to address the skilling and upskilling requirements.
We should start taking steps to keep ourselves updated. Employees and employers both need to be proactive in their hunger to keep learning. While technology is making it easier for learners to gain knowledge at their own convenience, it is critical to keep pace with the ever-evolving landscape.
That means, up-skilling on existing skills, adding new ones and even retaining them over the course of your entire career is a must.
(Neeti Sharma is with TeamLease Services Limited and Sumit Kumar is with TeamLease Skills University)