CHENNAI:The Indian school system puts students through long years of academic rigour, but it doesn’t go far in terms of making them job-ready. While engineering students are unable to handle a welding machine, the country has continued to surge on its academia-drawn tangent, forgetting skill-building along its trajectory, felt a ThinkEdu Conclave panel that included Union Minister for Skill Development Rajiv Pratap Rudy. “Since independence there has been emphasis on education, but our schools have completely missed the bus on skill-building,” said Rudy. “If I gave any one of you a spanner and asked you to fix something, would you be able to?” Rudy asked.
R Ravichander, group president (South), Yes Bank, opined that skill-building would be possible if each of the top 500 industries partnered with one institution every year. “If each company can provide skill-training for 1,000 students, we will create lakhs of trained and employable youth every year,” he said.
Venkatesh Kini, President, Coca-Cola India, attributed the skill deficit to the Indian desire for a white-collar job. “Although stressing on the knowledge quotient we don’t impart skill. This is why in India we create intelligent, knowledgeable youngsters who’ve no idea how to go out and work in the field. They can’t sell to a retailer, work in a factory or man a workstation,” he said. There’s a cultural misconception about blue-collared jobs in India as opposed to the West, where not being able to do household electrical work, for instance, is looked down upon, he said.