Bridging the Skill Gap

In India, hundreds of thousands of graduates are coming out of professional colleges and universities. However, much to the lament of employers, only a minuscule percentage turn out to be employable. Corporates have to sieve through hundreds to find a handful of employable candidates equipped with the right skills.

This is the reason for the huge demand for the top educational institutes like IITs and the IIMs among the big corporates. India has only a handful of such world-class higher educational institutions.  Corporates offer huge packages as salaries to students of top-notch institutes.

It is a struggle for companies to find the right candidates to fill up their positions, both technical and managerial. For students of hundreds of obscure colleges, it is a hard struggle to find their first job. In their search for job, gullible students are falling prey to fraudulent consultancies and crash coaching centers and end up paying huge amounts of money as fee.

On the other hand, in second-tier cities and districts, the problem is of a different nature. Lack of proper communication skills is the main hurdle for the candidates there.

India has the best human resources potential and if corporates wish to tap it effectively, the issue of the skill gap needs to be addressed. Can the Big Blue (IBM) take the initiative of collaborating effectively with educational institutions and universities? The following reforms are needed in our higher education system:

1. What is practically relevant in real-time is taught to students and enough importance given to practice rather than theory.
2. Teaching the skills that are relevant to the industry, not some archaic theory.
3. Reform the examination system to do away the need for rote learning.
4. Make the courses more flexible. Allow students some options to choose the credits and subjects they are interested in, in a semester.
5. Introduce alternative/innovative teaching methods.
6. Effective use of e-learning
7. Teaching soft skills

If done effectively, this will be a win-win situation to students and corporates. For corporates, the increment in the number of industry-ready students coming out of colleges will result in huge savings in the form of reduced amounts spent on training candidates and headhunting.  For students, it would spare them the agony of spending money and time on crash courses offered by institutes of dubious nature.
Please share your ideas on how corporates can take the lead in bridging the skill-gap to the advantage of students and corporates in particular and the welfare of the country in general. --------------------------------------------------------------------------One of my posts in IBM JAM held in February 2011, on the eve of IBM's centennial.