In India, Educated but Unemployable Youths

Graduates Find Schools Don't Foster Skills Needed for Changing Economy

By Rama Lakshmi

Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 4, 2009

Barely eight months after leaving prestigious Delhi University with an undergraduate degree in commerce, Reena Dubey is back in the classroom, poring over a textbook on debt recovery and taking notes on India's banking industry.

"I studied economics, accounting, trade, corporate tax planning and industrial law for three years. But I was still clueless when I graduated," said Dubey, 22. "All my education was bookish and theoretical."

Hoping to secure an entry-level job as a credit card collection agent, Dubey recently enrolled in a skills-building course offered by New Delhi's Avsarr training academy for new graduates who want to work in India's booming banking and retail industries.

"India's job market has changed, but my degree has not equipped me for it," she said.

Dubey's deflating discovery mirrors the experience of most of the 3.2 million Indians who receive undergraduate degrees each year. The Confederation of Indian Industry says that 25 percent of technical graduates and 15 percent of other graduates can be readily employed in the jobs that the recent boom has generated in the telecommunications, banking, retail, health care and information technology sectors.

"The stark reality is that our education system churns out people, but industry does not find them useful," said T.K.A. Nair, principal secretary to the prime minister, addressing a recent conference here in the capital on linking education to employability. "The necessary development of skills is missing in our education."

About 69 percent of unemployed Indians are educated but lack skills, according to the Confederation of Indian Industry. Only 6 percent of the workforce has a professional certification other than a degree, a figure the Labor Ministry says it hopes to boost to 12 percent within five years. In February, the government announced an ambitious plan to address the skills gap by improving vocational training and encouraging cooperation between educational institutions and industry.

The problem is compounded by demographic changes that experts say will greatly expand the country's working-age population in coming years.

Today, about 54 percent of Indians are younger than 30. Census projections suggest that the proportion of Indians in the 15-to-64 age group will increase steadily, from 62.9 percent in 2006 to 68.4 percent in 2026. By 2020, the average age in India is expected to be 31, compared with 37 in China and 48 in Japan. Census reports say that India is entering the advantageous "demographic dividend" phase just as China leaves it.

In a report last year, however, the Finance Ministry said that if that growing workforce does not develop skills soon, the country could face "a demographic nightmare": a surplus of educated people and a shortage of qualified workers as labor requirements continue to shift from agriculture to industry.

"This is the biggest wake-up call for India. Our schools and colleges do not provide the skills that India's new economic drive demands," said Amit Kapoor, a professor at the Management Development Institute in Gurgaon, near New Delhi. "People are graduating without learning how to get things done, without complex problem-solving skills, without knowing how to put their theoretical education into practice, and with poor articulacy. Our schools are centers of rote learning and give out degrees without imparting employable skills."

The problem extends even to India's much-hyped engineering graduates, who have been the backbone of the country's thriving outsourcing industry in the past decade.

Every year, India produces about 650,000 engineers. But Pratik Kumar, executive vice president for human resources at the information-technology and outsourcing giant Wipro, says his company considers fewer than a quarter of them employable. "The biggest problem is the poor quality of teachers," he said. "The teaching profession is unable to attract good talent. It is often the last resort for people who could not make it elsewhere." In the past three years, Wipro has created several funds to finance grants, research scholarships and sabbaticals for teachers in engineering schools.

"This is not philanthropy," Kumar said. "If we don't do this now, it will hinder the future growth of our industry." According to a recently released report by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the research group Technopak, "most industries are struggling to achieve their growth targets because of a shortage of skilled labor." The report says some companies have begun hiring skilled blue-collar workers from abroad and recommends the creation of "skill councils" for different industries that would track data, set standards and design training curricula.

But there is a cultural barrier to overcome, as well. When the Confederation of Indian Industry set out a few years ago to make India the "skill capital of the world," it found that many educated Indians frowned upon the word "skill."

"It is associated with low-level jobs in people's minds. 'Skill' is not meant for educated persons," said Vijay Thadani, chairman of the group's national committee on education. "We have to change that perception, to bring social acceptability and recognition to the word. We keep repeating that skill is a bankable, certifiable asset. Skill is currency

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Are employability skills coachable?

 

A NASSCOM report says only 10 per cent of newly minted graduates in India are employable. Nishant Saxena describes how students can learn communication skills, business ethics and basic managerial skills

Enough has been said and written on employability skills or the lack of them among Indian students. Essential for any job aspirant, these are non-technical skills and competencies which contribute to an individual’s effective and successful participation in the workplace. According to a report by NASSCOM, only 10 per cent of fresh graduates in India are employable. Similar surveys on engineers and MBA graduates place employable professionals at no more than 25 per cent.

So let’s begin by defining 9 missing requirements which limit a youngster’s chances of landing a job.

Attitude (Sincerity, Ownership/Motivation)

• Business Ethics/Honesty
• Grooming/Confidence
• Communication Skills
• General Awareness
• Basic Managerial Skills (Leadership, Teamwork, Time Management etc.)
• Basic Sales and Customer Service (most entry level jobs require one of these)
• Domain Knowledge
• Work Experience
  

While the obvious solution to unlock India’s much discussed demographic dividend is to empower students with these requisite skills, the question remains: can these employability skills be taught?
Attitude & Ethics are the most difficult to correct. Clinical psychologists have found that attitude can be improved through a six-nine month process involving motivation, extended practise and constant feedback. Being pedantic almost never works in improving attitude. Still, most professors continue to hope that by repeating their unsolicited advice, students may change!
Even the use of innovative techniques like story-telling has thrown up mixed results. In reality, the effect of a few hours of class is often drowned by 22 years of grounding. While some borderline cases did change, for the most part, only the good ones got better.

Grooming & Confidence, on the other hand, are the easiest to correct. Steady practise in small batches of 15-25 students, with people of similar ability carefully chosen and teamed up, giving every individual a chance to speak for 5-7 minutes every day for four-five months, brought about tremendous improvement. Workshops involving specially trained grooming instructors, emphasising lines such as ‘dress to impress’ worked too.  The process requires strict discipline so that everyone gets time to speak. Similarly, basic grooming checks on colour combinations of attire, hair and shoe polish, every day, for a few months so that students understand how to dress for formal situations.  

Communication skills takes time and a scientific method of intervention.Basic communication skills have to be sharpened. This involves improving students’ listening skills, helping them understand their audience, and training them to be crisp and logical in their responses.

Most tier 2 colleges are concerned about the inability of their students to speak English fluently. A module which covers Grammar and spoken English, and pronunciation is required. Students are usually less inclined to focus on English at such a late stage in their career. So the training sessions need to be lively and interactive.

An everyday quiz on current affairs for six months can help students develop the reading habits. To build their interest, as part of the quiz, those who are unable to answer a question may be fined Rs 5 while those who answer correctly may be rewarded.

While it would be ambitious to think that a two-hour, team work session will make everyone a great team player, we have seen a significant improvement in the level of maturity through this method.
Many undergraduate students lack work experience in any domain. Moreover, most college faculty are not qualified to train students in industry-oriented skills. So the best practice is to get a significant portion of training to be delivered by industry experts. Those who can deliver live corporate experiences, share inside secrets and tips on the business world, explain what is not covered in theory and how to apply theory in real life must be invited to address students on campus.

Most companies want work experience before a degree like an MBA, but 80-95 per cent of MBA students are fresh BA/B Com/B Sc graduates. This can be corrected by offering industry projects during the course ( internship, externships etc).

The long-term solution may be for colleges to recruit  experienced students, especially for a post graduate course like MBA.

 

Source : Deccan Herald

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