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23 Jun 2013

Weak skills, no jobs for most Indian graduates

 'Rema Nagarajan' TIG, Times of India, MUMBAI, page 19, June 23,2013.

Of the five million odd graduates that India produces annually, only a little over half are employable in any sector of the knowledge economy.

Just 2% are employable in corporate communication or content development, for which the primary requirement is English and basic analytical skills.
Only 3% are employable as analysts and a mere 2% in accounting.

 About 16% and 14% of the graduates were employable in sales and customer service or operations jobs, respectively. These require communication, cognitive skills and personality traits such as friendliness and agreeableness and in the latter numerical ability too. 


Over one third of the graduates (36%) were suitable for employment in clerical/secretarial jobs, the sector showing highest employability for graduates, followed by IT-enabled services and BPO. These show 21.4%employability as they require relatively low skills. 


However, when it comes to IT services and IT operations, only 13% and 16%, respectively are employable.

In teaching, the employability was just 15%. 


 The city from where the students graduate also influences employability. Employability is highest in the bigger Tier I cities (over 25 lakh population). The drop in employability is maximum for jobs of analysts and corporate communication , all jobs that require high competence in cognitive skills and English.

It was found that the higher the skill requirement for a job, the greater the gap between employability in Tier I compared with Tier II and III cities. Tier III cities (less than five lakh population) seem worst off when it comes to exposure to computers, while in English both Tier II and Tier III need help. 

When it comes to a drop in skills from Tier II to Tier III cities, it is noticeable that the drop in cognitive skills is the highest among management and engineering students. 

Full article epaper TOI


In the place of discussing the problem, is it not time to discuss the solution? 
The solution has to come from teachers, in my opinion, as they are the ‘oxygen’ of education system. 

Why keeping salient. Could you please offer your solution?