Change and reskill or perish: Only way to survive in a jobless economy

To be able to survive in this fast-paced world, professionals are being asked to reskill. A Nasscom report says there is a need to re-train up to 1.5 million, or nearly half of the IT sector’s workforce, due to the advent of latest technologies. What this means is that though the present generation of college students may be having adequate skills, the market doesn’t need them.

Moreover, according to the Economic Survey, annual employment growth  in India was barely 0.5 percent during 2004-12, whereas the labor force growth was around 2.9 percent. According to the Indian Government's very own Labor Bureau, India created only 135,000 jobs in eight labor-intensive sectors in 2015, whereas the number of people working or looking for jobs grew by more than 10 million. The situation is alarming.

As many as 15 million youth enter the workforce every year. Of this, over 75 percent are not job ready. India Skills Report suggests that by 2025, more than 250 million of India’s youth would have entered the workforce, while only 5% of that human resource pool would have employability, obtained through formal training. One of the obvious reasons is job scarcity. The economy is just not generating enough jobs.

Educational institutions require curriculum with inbuilt re-skilling

Therefore, educational institutions need to build a curriculum that is dynamic and not static; it should have an element of elasticity with emphasis on broadening minds and the habit to continuously reinvent themselves. This must be inculcated at an early stage.

Lowering education standards in private colleges

Additionally, new centers of higher education, particularly private colleges, keep mushrooming across India. Educational standards in the ever-increasing private institutions are not good enough. In some instance, standards have hit rock bottom. The assumption that all colleges actually impart education falls flat; paper credentials are being bought through a fee. As many as 5,000,000 Indian students graduate every year, of which many are unaware of the basics of their field. They then find themselves struggling to meet the industry’s standards.

Seed scientific temperament along with technical skills

It is a complain from all: Indian students lack the scientific temperament. That's one of the reasons most of the technology vendors in India are aggregators and not original inventors. Whereas , creativity and scientific temperament are the factors that have led technology to where it is today. Besides technical skill development and soft skills, students need critical and rational thinking to survive.

Critical and creative thinking needed for inventions, innovations

Critical and creative thinking are aspects that not only lead to innovation and invention  but are also the building blocks of good citizens and a responsible society. There is a fallacious thinking in some sections of the society that technical fields like that of the information technology sector don't need creativity. Such a presumption cannot be far from the truth. It is fallacious to think that such sectors of the industry don’t require rational and creative thinking. In fact, it is one of the most creatively demanding fields. Therefore, the rote method of education is failing to ignite young minds with the passion and drive necessary to bring about inventions and innovations.

Transform graduates into skilled and resourceful workers

In such a grave scenario, the big question is: how does one transform students into skilled employable workers? But this can surely not be achieved through an education system that is obsolete and severely out of tune with realities of the present times. To be able to compete internationally, the bar of education will have to be raised significantly.

Include industry elements such as business intelligence in schools

Business intelligence can be an immensely advantageous skill for students and professionals. It would provide them insights into the latest trends and give them an exact idea of what the industry needs from them. It would thus greatly increase their chances of getting picked up and being offered a job. The present generation must leverage the advances of modern technology and analytics. This would help them understand the importance of how data-driven business intelligence can provide an edge to the way businesses are run today. The critical element here is to form that pool of human resources.