Youth Unemployability In India in the 21st Century

A FICCI-Ernst & Young Paper survey says about 80% of the Indian workforce does not possess identifiable
marketable skills.

India has the largest, youngest population in the world. But it is also the most
unemployable population as it lacks work skills that can make it employable.
According to a survey conducted by FICCI-Ernst & Young Paper, even though over 40
million people are registered in employment exchanges, only 0.2 million get jobs
annually. Even startling is the fact that about 80% of the Indian workforce does not
possess identifiable marketable skills. Equally sad is the fact that the school dropout
rate in India touches 56.8% by the time students reach the qualifying examination at the
10th standard which further leads to unemployability.
The survey found that only 25% of the Indian professionals are considered employable
by multinationals and the difficulty of employers in India to fill job vacancies has
increased to 67%in 2011 compared with 16% in last year.
It is estimated that over 75% of the new jobs to be created in India will be skill-based.
While the countrys overall supply of highly skilled labour marginally exceeds demand,
there is a shortage of adequately qualified (or employable) people. The study said this
was primarily due to the fact that the Indian training institutions are heterogeneous in
nature varying in quality of education and training provided by them.
There is also lack of focus on development of skills pertaining to the specific
requirement of employers. And, there is non-recognition of the value of skilled workers
by employers, particularly in the small enterprise sectors.

The report said India has many lessons to learn from international
practices. Germany has 75% and the UK has 68% skilled work force compared to India
which account for only 2%. It said, thus, far-reaching and deep rooted reforms were
needed to emulate countries whose vocational education and training systems has
been successful.
Last year, another study by FICCI had pointed out that fresh graduates who posses
soft skills and have vocational training besides the factual knowledge provided by
certification programs find jobs much more easily than to those who lack them. The
survey had claimed that there was a severe crunch of good manpower in the corporate
sector and only 30% employers and top bosses expressed satisfaction with the new
graduates they had hired indicating fresh graduates needed to posses more than just a
degree.
60%of Indias 1.2 billion people are in the working age group. However, only 10% of
the 300 million children in India between the age of 6 and 16 will pass school and go
beyond. Only 5%of Indias labour force in the age group 19-24 years is estimated to
have acquired formal training, said S. Ramadorai, advisor to the Prime Minister in
National Skill Development Council.
Understanding the issues, the government has already started reworking its vocational
education framework to be more competitive and acceptable to the world market.
Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said that since there was an acute
shortage of labour at Tier 2 and Tier 3. It is anticipated that by 2020, about 220 million
students will pass out from school, out of which, about 150 million will not enroll for
college education.
This young talent needs to be motivated for vocational education, Sibal said.

For our people to benefit from new employment opportunities, we must ensure that every
Indian is skilled and educated. Education alone is the foundation on which a prosperous and
progressive society is built. I wish to see a revolution in education and skill development in the
next five years. We will make India a nation of educated people, of skilled people, of creative
people. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India at the Red Fort on August 15, 2007.
In this century, India is emerging as a global leader and a strong nation with fast changing
realities. India strives to compete in a globalised economy, in areas that require highly trained
professionals. Thus, education is considered as a capstone for the nations development.
We have the third largest higher education market in terms of student numbers, after China and
the United States. English is the primary language at our institutions. India has created worldclass institutions like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the Indian Institutes of
Management (IIMs) and perhaps a few others such as the All India Institute of Medical Sciences
and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. However, these institutions are limited, and
when combined, they enroll under one per cent of the student population (Altbach, 2005, para.
4).
In spite of the increase in the number of school and universities across India, we are surviving
with a mediocre higher education system in the global market.
Even after 65 years of independence, we face the problem of millions of graduates being
unemployable for Indian and multinational companies. The Indian education system
manufactures 100,000 graduates of which only 53 percent are employable. (Team Lease, 2007,
pp.3). A Wall Street Journal article (Anand, 2011) states 75 percent of technical graduates and
more than 85 percent of general graduates are unemployable by Indias high growth global
industries. It is estimated that the percentage of Indian college graduates readily employable in
the market is only 15-25 percent of the total talent pool.

Hence, skill imparting and training needs to be initiated. With the estimated increase in the
population below 25 years, the problem of youth being unemployable is a serious concern and
needs urgent reforms.
The current education system does not educate students to apply skills. Basic attitudes and skills
like punctuality, maintaining logbooks, project management, discipline, customer interface, clear
communication, etc. are not taught. So even if basic skills are there, the lack of professional
skills often means that the individual cannot create value for themselves or their organization.
says the HR Head of one of the largest telecommunications company (Anand, 2011).
Such industry complaint, that the youth are not employable, is a harsh feedback that Indians are
not measuring up to the order of psychological capacity demanded in the modern workplace. But
how is this possible when the Indian higher education system has not made many changes in its
syllabus and teaching method since the British rule.
India achieved its independence in 1947 and in its inheritance, received the British education
system. The structure of the whole system was based solely on giving a degree that served as
passports to the government services. The emphasis was on academic subjects and not so much
on technical or skill development. It was not in their interest to impart an education system that
fostered independence or self-authorship. The Indian political leadership had the arduous task of
truly educating the Indian population.
Can Higher Education Adapt?
The gaps and shifts experienced have led educators, learners, and the industry to demand better
quality education.
The question is whether our education system can adapt to this new paradigm. In a globalized
workplace the demand for STEM skills (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) is
increasing. Beyond this, the 21st century skills also include the following capacities:

problem solving and decision making

creative and critical thinking

collaboration, communication, and negotiation

intellectual curiosity and the ability to find, select, structure, and evaluate information;

and the motivation to be:

an independent self-starter, who is responsible, persevering, self-regulating, reflective, self

evaluating, and self-correcting

a lifelong learner who is flexible and able to adapt to change (Cisco, pp. 10)

Learning these skills is imperative for developing countries like India to make the move to a
knowledge economy.
Long back the ailments were identified.
The government had realized that they adopted the British education system with the laissezfaire attitude, and set up a number of goals to be pursued, as stated in the report of the Education
Commission (Kothari, 1964-66).
We have also suggested various remedial measures like financing, public private partnerships
and improved teacher training quality. In spite of this, why has India failed in implementing
these reforms for the last 50 years?
A deeper analysis of the system will indicate that these measures do not cure the disease of the
system which actually prevents us from implementing some of the reforms. The stakeholders of
this system policymakers, teachers and students need to look at the system from above the
stage of drama; reflect and analyze on the component of the educations system that is working
for the development of the country, and let go off those, that are not working for the country
today. This higher level of mental complexity will enable us to embrace the new reality and
challenges of the modern world and transform the system.

How can this system in sickness be brought to better heath? In nursing and treatment of a sick
person to bring him back to health, it is necessary that he be given not what his wanton desires
urge, but what he needs and what is medically prudent to be given (Mishra, 2003).
Our higher education needs restructuring. According to Robert Kegan (1994) a famous
developmental psychologist, professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, says the
focus should not be on what the student knows, but how the student knows.
The path of transformation for the higher education system in India lies in the way we construct
meaning of our past, which will help us to abandon the received legacies of the past, and adapt to
the new demands and needs of the time in a self-authoring way, rather than appeasing populist
sentiments.
Radical changes and restructuring is called for. An alignment between the production of labor
supply and labor demand is required. An average student is comfortable with rote learning and
expects the textbooks to impart skills and knowledge with little questioning from the student.
The government is stuck thinking, whether they should publicly finance or have institutions
finance themselves. We do not need just more money but a structural change, a change in the
mindset of the policy makers, teachers, university boards and system overall. We do not need
more cooks but a different recipe!
The report to the people on education (pp. 3) talks about the importance of educating our youth
for the future.
This young population should be considered as an invaluable asset, which if equipped with
knowledge and skills, can contribute effectively to the development of the national as well as the
global economy. Our vision is to realize Indias human resource potential to its fullest in the
education sector, with equity and inclusion.
References:

Altbach, G. P. (2005, April 12). Higher education in India. The Hindu. Retrieved from
http://www.hinduonnet.com
Anand. G. (2011, April 5). India Graduates Millions, but Too Few Are Fit to Hire. The Wall
Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com
Cisco. Equipping Every Learner for the 21st Century. Retrieved from
newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2008/ekits/Equipping_Every_Learner_for_21st_Century_White_Paper
.pdf Equipping Every Learner for the 21st Century
critical thinking. (n.d.). Dictionary.coms 21st Century Lexicon. Retrieved May 05, 2011, from
Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/critical thinking
India Labour Report. (2007). The Youth Unemployability Crisis. Retrieved from
www.teamlease.com/images/reports/Teamlease_LabourReport_2007.pdf The Youth
Unemployability Crisis
Kegan, R. (1994). In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life. Cambridge, Mass:
Harvard University Press.
Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, New Delhi, (2010). Report to
the People on Education. Retrieved from www.education.nic.in/Report-english.pdf
Mishra, K. S (2003): On self-financing of institutions of higher learning in India. Unpublished.
Retrieved from http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/1829/
Reed, S. K. (2000). Problem solving. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of psychology(Vol. 8,
pp. 7175). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association and Oxford University Press.