There are a handful of factors that have resulted in the unemployability of our youth. One of the chief factors is the existence of so many deficiencies that beset our educational processes and institutions. In 2011, just when I had assumed charge as the vice chancellor of the University of Delhi, I experienced a couple of episodes that helped crystallise my latent views on the rather worrisome situation of unemployment prevailing among the educated youth of our country. A well-known multinational had decided to expand its operations in India and it had a large number of job openings. The prerequisites for these jobs were simply a first degree in any discipline and some familiarity with communication and basic data skills. We had shortlisted 1,200 of the best resumes from among a large number of applicants. Each of these applicants underwent a blind interview where the details of their college affiliations and such things were not disclosed. The recruitment team eventually found only three suitable candidates. More distressingly, they expressed that they would not want to engage with us in the future. My second experience relates to when I encountered a young Indian cab driver in Sydney. He had acquired a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degree from one of the University of Delhi’s colleges that was ‘renowned’ for its exceptionally high cut-offs. This youngster had then moved to Australia hoping to make a mark only to learn that he did not know anything relevant or useful in his chosen discipline. He had to re-educate himself in Australia and was working as a cab driver to pay for his re-education.
For decades, our universities and colleges have been offering degrees that are based on outmoded curricula. Their pedagogy emphasises rote learning and places utmost importance on unimaginative testing. As an illustration, the University of Delhi has more than 5,000 undergraduates enrolled in its mathematics programme. Each student has been exposed to mathematics courses that seem to believe that she wishes to become a full time mathematician. On the contrary, most mathematics undergraduates are not in the least interested in pursuing mathematics as a career option. This results in a serious mismatch between the mindset of the student and the offerings of her degree.
Is it any wonder then that our educated youth are not able to find gainful employment in a meaningful way? I am reminded of the time in 2008 when the then President of NASSCOM had expressed through a widely publicised statement that only one in four graduates was employable. Such a situation prevails in spite of the highly acclaimed and very enlightened National Education Policy 2020 (NEP). The prescriptions of the NEP are easy to understand and just as easy to implement. The unfortunate part is that in most parts of our nation the ground level implementation of the NEP has been quite shoddy. However, this is not true of the entire nation. For instance, in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, the NEP is being implemented in a faithful and fruitful manner. All major universities and several autonomous colleges of Jammu and Kashmir have launched an undergraduate course known formally as the Design Your Degree programme. This emphasises project-based learning alongside a curriculum that is built around the needs and challenges of society. It also calls for a transdisciplinary approach to knowledge gain where communication skills, data skills, IT skills and project management skills happen naturally through engagement with the designing and execution of projects. Entrepreneurship is an integral part of the entire curriculum in blended ways. I rest my case with the views of a very prominent corporate leader of our nation who visited the students of this programme and exclaimed to me that each student seemed like a genius. I express the fervent hope that other parts of the nation shall follow suit.
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