Putting a big question mark on the quality of education in the country, a recent study has found that nearly half of the tens of lakhs of graduates—a whopping 47 percent to be precise–that our tens of thousands colleges churn out every are good for nothing! In other words, nearly half the graduates who pass out each year are not "employable" as they don’t possess the basic skills necessary for any industry role.
According to a report by Aspiring Minds, an employability solutions company, around 47 percent graduates in the country are unemployable for any job. The report, which is claimed to be the first ever national audit of employability of three-year Bachelor's degree graduates, drew inferences from data of over 60,000 graduates from across the country.
"The alarming statistics of nearly half the graduates not being employable in the knowledge economy needs great attention with interventions at both the school and higher education levels," says Aspiring Minds co-founder Varun Aggarwal. The employability of graduates varies from 2.59 percent in functional roles like accounting, to 15.88 percent in sales related roles and 21.37 percent for roles in the BPO/ITeS sector.
Nearly 47 percent are not employable in any sector, given their insufficient English language and cognitive skills. The report notes that since a graduation degree is considered a pathway to a job in the knowledge economy, substantive intervention at school and college level is needed to improve basic skills of students. Moreover, a renewed focus on vocational training is timely now and should be re-emphasised.
Employability varies from role to role based on varying degrees of proficiency required in language and cognitive skills. For an analyst role, close to 84 percent of graduates lack the right levels in cognitive ability, the report said, adding a significant majority 90 percent graduates do not have required proficiency in English.
Interestingly, over 40 percent employable graduates are not from the top 30 percent colleges and have no way to signal their employability to potential recruiters. As much as 41 percent employable in accounting roles hail from colleges beyond the top 30 percent colleges, whereas for the IT services sector this percentage is 36 percent.
