A recent report reveals Indian higher education does not prepare students for the workforce
A study on higher education suggests that 67 per cent of Indian students feel that their existing university curriculum fails at relevant training and development. Moreover, 59 per cent of the surveyed students denied having any access to employability and career services at their institution.
The Global Talent in India — Challenges and Opportunities for Skills Development in Higher Education Report was written by researchers at the UK-based Bournemouth University, working with a range of stakeholders. Several employer organisations participated in the survey. Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) also took part in the study.
These students, during the survey, argued that despite knowing that higher education is a key element in equipping them with high-level skills and attributes, there wasn’t much they could do about the negligible exposure to practice-based education in their existing curriculum.
The study looked at the Indian Higher Education framework from the perspectives of the five major educational stakeholder groups — Higher Education leadership, students, employers, policy-makers and NGOs.
Academic staff and higher education leaders pointed to the current gap between the university curriculum and contemporary developments in the world of work; with 65 per cent of them feeling that students in India are unable to apply graduate-level skills and competencies in their scope of work.
Employers and industry representatives indicated the lack of preparedness of Indian graduates for the world of work, with 67 per cent of them feeling that a majority of fresh graduates are unable to demonstrate the higher-level skills that they are looking for in their industry.
Policy makers suggested that a move towards firmly embedding disciplines such as entrepreneurship, innovation and quality research, have the potential to scale up and support the government’s efforts in skilling India. Yet, only 30 per cent agreed that Indian universities have the required framework to provide students with new and industry-relevant knowledge.
NGO representatives highlighted the current progress of the Indian higher education sector in preparing students and graduates for the Indian workforce. 45 per cent of the sampled NGOs suggested that majority of higher education standards in India fail to prepare students for the global workplace.
The authors of the report, Dr Sonal Minocha, Dr Dean Hristov and Dr Chindu Sreedharan, scanned higher education facilities in New Delhi, Pune and Chennai, interviewing and sampling the major stakeholders in the higher education system to compile the final document.
The report
- The Global Talent in India — Challenges and Opportunities for Skills Development in Higher Education Report written by researchers at the Bournemouth University.
- India stakeholders like IITs, IIMs, the University of Madras and Delhi University also worked on the report.
- Participating employer organisations included Alibaba India, CNN India, Google, Accor and a range of entrepreneurs.
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