PASE WISE FEB 07 - Guru Gobind Singh Study Circle

Why India needs to learn how to teach
A serious problem is staring India's higher education in the
face, but we just aren't seeing it. It's about the misalignment
between education and employment.
Unemployment among the educated is high - and rising. But
even the existing employment opportunities are not matched by
the number of employable people. In the IT sector alone, where
exports (currently Rs 107,000 crore) are projected to touch Rs
285,000 crore by 2010, about 20 lakh new jobs will be created.
Yet, NASSCOM estimates a shortfall of 5 lakh employable
graduates.
This paradox was high lighted by two recent statements.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in India last month that, to be
employable worldwide, Indian graduates need more "hands-on"
practical training. NASSCOM president Kiran Karnik was more
blunt. Shake up the university system, he said at a vicechancellors'
conference in Mumbai last week.
Of the 30 lakh graduates added to the workforce annually
the IT and ITES sectors can absorb only 20-25 percent of our
engineering graduates. "We can't employ the 26th candidate
because he or she is just not employable," Karnik observed. The
employability of non-engineering graduates is even lower - only
10-15 percent, for they lack "technical and soft skills which
employers look for."
Since the university system is not making graduates
employment-compatible, many IT companies have to spend
substantial resources to re-train fresh recruits. In-fosys has
established a megasize campus in Mysore to retrain, at a time, as
many as 10,000 new recruits. Similarly, TCS has launched a
Talent tansformation Initiative to train thousands of science
graduates into software professionals. However, only big IT
companies can make this additional investment. Small ones
have to make do with graduates who are mostly, for no fault of
their own, not up-to-the-mark.
And except for a small percentage of well-managed and wellendowed
arts, science, and commerce colleges -which account
Every artist was first an amateur.
Sudheendra Kulkarni
-Ralph Waldo Emerson-Henry David Thoreau
for 70 percent of our 1.1 crore
students -the rest can be stacked at
various levels of mediocrity.
Many factors contribute to the
malaise: outdated curriculum;
obsolete equipment; teachers who
don't update their knowledge base;
managements that lack
commitment to academic
excellence; rote learning; examoriented
teaching; lack of activitybased
learning through team effort.
The biggest failure of our
university system is that students
are not taught "soft skills" - the
competence to discuss, analyse,
innovate and communicate. '
Clearly, India's failing university
system needs urgent reforms to
remove the mismatch between
education and employment. Let me
mention five measures here:
Allow, and create opportunities
for students to do short-term
diploma or certificate courses
along with their degree courses.
These courses should be linked to
areas in which employment
opportunities are opening up. The
UGC has already recommended
this innovation.
Only 20 percent of our colleges and
50 percent of our 317 universities
have been assessed for minimum
quality by NA&AC. Since the task
is too large for a single body to
perform, a state-level mechanism
for assessment and accreditation
should be evolved, rewarding
institutions that perform well.
Liberate India's higher education
from three foes: bureaucratic
clutches of the HRD ministry and
state education departments;
February 2007
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