What’s the bear minimum you have to do to get a job in the majority of fields? Get a degree. With fierce competition in the global job market, a degree is no longer enough to support career success. Students are finishing their degrees, some with top marks and impressive academic profiles but are unable to secure their first job.
Employability skills are receiving even more attention with employers frequently reporting that employees lack these skills. Companies are still not able to hire individuals for even for entry-level positions. Millions of parents continue wasting their life savings in mindlessly following outdated and useless education system.
The education industry continues selling crap, and people continue buying. The govt. doesn’t care and corporates can’t afford education and business both. Considering the hefty cost of these degrees and the levels of debt incurred, the question finally arises so as to who is responsible for lack of employability skills amongst youth. I
s it fair to say that embedding wider skills that boost employability within degree programmes is the solution to tackling graduate unemployment? If so, whose responsibility is it to provide or seek these wider expertise? The Govt? The university? The student? Or both? or someone else? The ‘blame game’ for these skills deficits is frequently directed to the candidates that they are not employable.
What Is Employbility?
Employability refers to your ability to gain initial employment, maintain. employment, and obtain new employment if required. It is having a set of skills, knowledge, understanding and personal attributes. In other words, employability is the possession by an individual of the qualities and competencies required to meet the changing needs of employers and customers and thereby help to realize his or her aspirations and potential in work.
Employers are often looking for skills that go beyond qualifications and experience. So, in order to be employable, one needs to possess certain set of attributes, skills and knowledge that ensure they have the capability of getting employed and be effective in the workplace to the benefit of themselves, their employer and the wider economy.
Current Employability Scenario of Youth of today in India
According to the data produced by the Global Business Coalition for Education (GBC-Education), the Education Commission, and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), approximately 50% of Indian youth are not on track to have the education and skills necessary for employment by 2030. It pointed out that skills among Indian youths were found to be below the global average.
India Skills Report 2021 by Wheebox, in partnership with Taggd, CII, AICTE, AIU and UNDP has reached over 65,000 students across the nation and over 150 employers across 15 Industries in order to have deep insight about employability aspects of youth of India. According to report less than half of the Indian graduates are employable. In 2021, as many as 45.9 per cent of graduates are employable, a decline from 46.21 per cent in 2020 and 47.38 per cent in 2019, reveals the report. MCA graduates are the least in terms of employability as only 22.42 percent of them are employable followed by polytechnic at 25.02 per cent.
Employability report revealed by Aspiring Minds for the year 2019 has also shown there is ‘No Change or Improvement’ in the employability of Indian Engineering graduates and this scenario persists since past 9 years.
Reasons behind Youth of today lacking employability skills
As per the employability report 2017-18 revealed by ASSOCHAM, root cause behind lack of employability skills amongst engineering and MBA Graduates are many institutes are only focusing on filling up seats and do not consider the educational quality of students at the time of intake.
Due to lack of professional skill sets, not even half of the Indian graduates are employable, reveals the eighth edition of the India Skills Report (ISR) ,2021.
A report commissioned by UNICEF and compiled by Ernst & Young India outlined several challenges in equipping Indian youth with adequate skills in order to make them employable. These included issues like lack of quality trainers, proper timing of training programs and time-consuming certification processes. The report also pointed out that most institutions in India still follow outdated curricula. In addition to this, inadequate infrastructure and quality of faculty make it difficult to provide students with relevant skills demanded by the labour market. The lack of awareness among youth about the various government-run skill development programs is also a major challenge.
EFOS primary focus is to address the need of Indian youth in getting access to verified information, counselling and handholding on trusted university/college/online courses in India and Abroad vocational training, skill development and certificate courses for employment Job opportunities (i.e. placements) with the leading brands/employers in all parts of the country Scholarships, recognition of prior learning/skills, targeted assistances/initiatives Special courses aimed at self employment/entrepreneurship.
The concluding remark
Counseling Plays a Major Role
There are around 50 crore jobs in India that requires only skill component while most of the students want to pursue for higher education irrespective of the future outcome. They do not decide based on their status, education level or jobs available to them, they just want to get a degree. Counseling plays a significant role here. If students are properly counseled and told right direction, they can have a better worthy future and can succeed in life.
Having adequate skills is essential. Decision-making, excellent writing skills, team working, presentation and articulation, empathy, reflection, curiosity and listening are some of the skills being demanded by all organisations. Many graduates have these skills; they just don’t know it. Couselling can help them realize the skills they have and can also help them guide the right direction.
EFOS.in has counselled more than 5 lakh students and help them build their bright future.
The dilemma is that all the parties who are involved nobody wants to take onus of their delivery and pass on everything to the candidates.
If we see all the situation, Student is the major party in all stakeholders. It is his life which is at stake. If he ends up having a degree and is not employable, situation will be worse for all the stake holders. All stake holders are not taking up their responsibility but are busy blaming the student. Student is the sufferer in this whole scenario. It is the combined responsibility of all stakeholders to focus upon making youth employable so that India have knowledge assets for future.
If India wants to prosper and grow as knowledge economy, every student who aim to get a degree must have a real opportunity and he must be dedicated to obtain an affordable, purposeful and employable degree and not just piece of paper.
There is a strong need in innovating at the intersection of employability and employment. Recognizing and accepting that there lies mismatch between education 4.0 and industry 4.0 will be the first step towards resolving the employability paradigm. Change in the entire ecosystem – perception, attitude, government policies, and the approach to education as well as employer’s investment in employees is the need of the hour.
