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Employ-ability in High Growth Sectors
The bookish knowledge of a new employee is not enough in the long run as sustainability is a big factor in the growth of an individual. Thus researching into the deficit, universities and industries are conducting workshops; experts from the industries are training students at various levels as per their needs. Short-time programmes are on the focus of both sides and are proving beneficial in the long run of enhanced employability skills By Jaydeep Saha
I
n recent times, our higher education system has been discussed in many fora with regard to its relevance and quality. India is ranked third in terms of graduates output next to that of USA and China, but in terms of quality, we are trailing, as hardly one percent of our students get quality education. Today’s high unemployment rates mask longer-term talent shortages that may affect both developing and developed countries for decades. The global population of 60 years and older will exceed that of 15-years-old or younger for the first time in history by 2050. But, the talent crisis will start much sooner. Barring technological breakthroughs, the United States, for example, will need to add 26 million workers to its talent pool by 2030 to sustain the average economic growth of the two past decades. The global IT industry has been a big employer of young talent across the globe because of the increasing influence of IT in business transformation. The global meltdown is being seen as
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an opportunity to transform across the world and they are looking at IT to lead this transformation. IT has become “glocal” — it has to transcend geographic and demographic barriers to deliver this transformation. Technology innovation is driving IT complexity and strict compliance norms and concerns of business continuity is driving a need for repeatable processes and assured performance. When talent hiring is taken into focus, development and deployment on a global scale, cannot afford to create artificial boundaries that global commerce does not support. Assuming that talent from a handful of countries can meet the new demands being made on Global IT is wrong besides being local is a critical factor that will drive our ability to truly partner with our customers where they are. The four parties who need to play a role in addressing this critical challenge are the Government, education institutions, industry, and the students themselves, who need to better understand the changing role of technology and
innovation in driving transformation. None of the four can make this work in isolation — it will take a well-coordinated approach. The real debate is not about who is smarter or how can we create trade barriers to protect jobs but how we invest in every country and ensure we create rich, employable talent that is globally available and will drive efficiency and innovation in our businesses. Every year, India produces more than 2.5 million university graduates, of which 20 percent are engineering majors and only 25 percent of these technical graduates and approximately 15 percent of other graduates are considered employable by the rapidly growing IT and ITeS companies, estimates NASSCOM adding India has 350 universities, 18,000 colleges and 6,000 ITIs, which every year come out with about 500,000 technical graduates, of which, 75 percent are not easily employable, and 2.3 million graduates, of which 90 percent are considered unemployable.