Today, a young engineering graduate or management postgraduate finds it hard to earn enough to live a decent life. It is difficult for most of the non-engineering/commerce graduates to even earn about ₹15,000 a month which is unfortunately less than that of the minimum wages prescribed by the central government. However, an interesting and important observation emerges in the same labour market. A person with no degree but with some specific skills, such as plumbing or an electrician’s job, is capable of earning many times more than a qualified engineer or MBA degree holder! This is not a reality in one particular market, but it is prevailing across India, be it rural or urban areas.
This may seem uncomfortable, but from the market’s point of view, the conventional education system is failing to prepare the youth for future job opportunities. At this juncture, there is a need for a serious overall review of our education system as a whole rather than just one instance in the policymaking process. We need to ask ourselves: Why is this happening, and why degrees are failing to provide livelihoods to people which were earlier capable of. Is India preparing its youth for the future job market, or is India still trapped in the past job market in which one was assessed for her/his capacity to memorise facts and figures rather than any tangible skill?
Not only is this, but also in this changing business environment where change is too quick to catch up, it is becoming almost impossible to predict where the change is coming from. So it becomes imperative for societies and economies to be more proactive rather than reactive to changes. In this environment, it's better to become the source of change than to dump on the change. So, in this critical hour of transition, India must ask: Is India preparing its youth for the future job market, or is India still trapped in the past job market?
India, at present, sits at a critical economic crossroads. It has a huge pool of young and talented citizens who are either getting ready to enter the job market in the coming years or have already entered the job market. Meanwhile, India is witnessing a large number of unemployed people of which maximum are unemployable as they simply fail to meet the industry demands and hardly possess any tangible skill useful for the industry or society. The Indian education system is still in the mode of making India literate rather than skilful. On the other hand, India has been very late in taking advantage of the demographic dividend which comes every few centuries. India started very late in manufacturing, research and development, basic sciences and artificial intelligence. When it comes to research, patents and education, India not only lags behind any developed or developing economy, but the whole system is fragmented, with no national coordination and long-term policy and framework. Not only this, the system is hardly in sync with the demands of the economy.
To address the above-cited problems, India is putting its policy parlance to modernise its workforce. Initiatives like Skill India, the PM Internship Scheme, the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS), the upgrade of ITIs and targeted technology programs such as the IndiaAI Mission, AI-Ready schools, vision for Orange Economy wisely target high-growth sectors, attempting to transform India's massive youth demographic into a global talent engine. National Education Policy 2020 is a cornerstone in this effort. All this is happening in the background with no breakthrough changes in the field. The higher education system is losing its academic rigour and lagging in integrating with industry. There is no national research and development policy with identifiable and targeted objectives that are synced with demands of the economy. Even state-to-state and university-to-university education systems are so diverse that syncing them together to create a national force is almost an impossible task.
India, though known as the ‘Jugaad Factory ’, lags in innovation. Vocational education in India is the last resort for students. When nothing works in the favour of students, they are forced to opt for vocational education rather than choosing it. Students’ first choice is traditional university education. The traditional university education system is important for India, and it must remain so. However, a change is needed in the paradigm of how the vocational education system meets the traditional education system. It is important to understand that the traditional education system is alien to the vocational education system. Rather, it should be the guiding force for vocational education. But unfortunately, there is hardly any linkage between the two systems. They operate separately in India. It is important to note that the institutions of vocational education are a vital centre of innovation across the globe. The institutions of vocational studies are places where innovation is an organic product of the whole process. Not only this, but the innovations at these centres often carry immediate and greater business relevance for the economy of the day than innovations at traditional universities, which are often costly and need long-term research and support. It's important for any economy to provide enough support to both the centres of innovation and research while linking them with industry. Cooperation with industry and training should be part of the same activity rather than being two separate activities.
It is important to note that Indian states and the central government spend about 4.1% of GDP, which is more than $100 billion every year, on education. However, the economic return on these investments remains bottlenecked by structural issues. There persists a stubborn gap between basic academic degrees and the practical, AI-driven problem-solving skills the modern market demands. For India to fully capitalise on its demographic dividend and avoid rising underemployment, it must not only rapidly scale up these pilot programs but also reform public school curricula that go beyond the NEP 2020 and make education more vocational, depending on the demands of the economy, and incentivise deeper private sector investment in workplace training to quickly update the workforce with the changes.
It is important to note that the income disparity and wealth gap in India are widening faster than one’s imagination. Rising income gap and wealth gap are not uncommon, but all the developing economies have witnessed it at varying intensity. The citizens who responded promptly to the changes in the economy and enterprise gained the most, while those who waited are victims of either complacency or ignorance, bearing the brunt of rising disparity.
This may seem uncomfortable, but from the market’s point of view, the conventional education system is failing to prepare the youth for future job opportunities. At this juncture, there is a need for a serious overall review of our education system as a whole rather than just one instance in the policymaking process. We need to ask ourselves: Why is this happening, and why degrees are failing to provide livelihoods to people which were earlier capable of. Is India preparing its youth for the future job market, or is India still trapped in the past job market in which one was assessed for her/his capacity to memorise facts and figures rather than any tangible skill?
Not only is this, but also in this changing business environment where change is too quick to catch up, it is becoming almost impossible to predict where the change is coming from. So it becomes imperative for societies and economies to be more proactive rather than reactive to changes. In this environment, it's better to become the source of change than to dump on the change. So, in this critical hour of transition, India must ask: Is India preparing its youth for the future job market, or is India still trapped in the past job market?
India, at present, sits at a critical economic crossroads. It has a huge pool of young and talented citizens who are either getting ready to enter the job market in the coming years or have already entered the job market. Meanwhile, India is witnessing a large number of unemployed people of which maximum are unemployable as they simply fail to meet the industry demands and hardly possess any tangible skill useful for the industry or society. The Indian education system is still in the mode of making India literate rather than skilful. On the other hand, India has been very late in taking advantage of the demographic dividend which comes every few centuries. India started very late in manufacturing, research and development, basic sciences and artificial intelligence. When it comes to research, patents and education, India not only lags behind any developed or developing economy, but the whole system is fragmented, with no national coordination and long-term policy and framework. Not only this, the system is hardly in sync with the demands of the economy.
To address the above-cited problems, India is putting its policy parlance to modernise its workforce. Initiatives like Skill India, the PM Internship Scheme, the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS), the upgrade of ITIs and targeted technology programs such as the IndiaAI Mission, AI-Ready schools, vision for Orange Economy wisely target high-growth sectors, attempting to transform India's massive youth demographic into a global talent engine. National Education Policy 2020 is a cornerstone in this effort. All this is happening in the background with no breakthrough changes in the field. The higher education system is losing its academic rigour and lagging in integrating with industry. There is no national research and development policy with identifiable and targeted objectives that are synced with demands of the economy. Even state-to-state and university-to-university education systems are so diverse that syncing them together to create a national force is almost an impossible task.
India, though known as the ‘Jugaad Factory ’, lags in innovation. Vocational education in India is the last resort for students. When nothing works in the favour of students, they are forced to opt for vocational education rather than choosing it. Students’ first choice is traditional university education. The traditional university education system is important for India, and it must remain so. However, a change is needed in the paradigm of how the vocational education system meets the traditional education system. It is important to understand that the traditional education system is alien to the vocational education system. Rather, it should be the guiding force for vocational education. But unfortunately, there is hardly any linkage between the two systems. They operate separately in India. It is important to note that the institutions of vocational education are a vital centre of innovation across the globe. The institutions of vocational studies are places where innovation is an organic product of the whole process. Not only this, but the innovations at these centres often carry immediate and greater business relevance for the economy of the day than innovations at traditional universities, which are often costly and need long-term research and support. It's important for any economy to provide enough support to both the centres of innovation and research while linking them with industry. Cooperation with industry and training should be part of the same activity rather than being two separate activities.
It is important to note that Indian states and the central government spend about 4.1% of GDP, which is more than $100 billion every year, on education. However, the economic return on these investments remains bottlenecked by structural issues. There persists a stubborn gap between basic academic degrees and the practical, AI-driven problem-solving skills the modern market demands. For India to fully capitalise on its demographic dividend and avoid rising underemployment, it must not only rapidly scale up these pilot programs but also reform public school curricula that go beyond the NEP 2020 and make education more vocational, depending on the demands of the economy, and incentivise deeper private sector investment in workplace training to quickly update the workforce with the changes.
It is important to note that the income disparity and wealth gap in India are widening faster than one’s imagination. Rising income gap and wealth gap are not uncommon, but all the developing economies have witnessed it at varying intensity. The citizens who responded promptly to the changes in the economy and enterprise gained the most, while those who waited are victims of either complacency or ignorance, bearing the brunt of rising disparity.
