It is high time that India fixes its examination system and modernizes its courses to impart employable skills

The work of 2018 Nobel Prize winner Paul Romer shows that the most valuable resource is people. Investments in human capital, knowledge and innovation significantly contribute to economic growth. While India’s population has long been seen as an obstacle, Narendra Modi’s 2024 Independence Day speech made an important conceptual breakthrough by recognizing it as an asset rather than a problem. He noted that if 400 million people – India’s population around 1947 – could achieve independence, the 1.4 billion Indians today could achieve much more.

As was evident from the Prime Minister’s keynote speech at the ET Global Leadership Forum last month, the Indian government has placed Viksit Bharat, the idea of ​​becoming a developed country by 2047, at the center of its economic vision. The speech also outlined the path forward: leveraging India’s demographic dividend to transform India into a skills/knowledge/research/innovation hub; a revolution that can be triggered by reducing the distance between industry and academia. Therefore, one simple strategy is to focus solely on increasing the skill quotient of Indian youth.

To achieve this, however, a disturbing trend must be addressed. India Employment Report 2024 shows that in 2022, 65.7% of educated youth were unemployed. At the same time, large companies like L&T are struggling to fill job vacancies. Many of them must devote significant time and resources to teaching newcomers the skills they need to perform their job duties once they are hired.

The problem is the theoretical and exam-focused orientation of our education system, which teaches few employable skills. Less than 5% of the workforce receives formal skills training, compared with more than 80% in Germany and Japan and more than 90% in South Korea. Upskilling courses in India are short-term and inculcate low-end skills that are not aspirational, sustainable or in sync with the requirements of industrial sectors.

However, a novel experiment conducted in several states by the Center for Research on Schemes and Policies (CRISP), a social enterprise founded by a group of bureaucrats, shows a way forward. CRISP has initiated apprenticeship-integrated education programs (AEDPs) in colleges in Telangana and UP, in collaboration with state governments and Sector Skill Councils (SSCs), which recruit industry players to develop sector-specific skills packages. The three-year AEDP courses are innovative in at least two respects:

Instead of focusing on traditional disciplines, they are focusing on new and employment-friendly areas such as BBA (Retail), BBA (Logistics, E-Commerce), BBA (Healthcare), BSc (Tourism and Hospitality) and BSc (Gaming) . design and development). These skills-based programs blur the line between general and vocational education. So one third of the 3-year AEDP course is taken up by a guaranteed work placement, where students not only receive a stipend to earn while they study, but are also assessed for graduation points, just like regular university courses.

These regular courses focus on general education, but also prioritize instilling soft skills such as leadership, teamwork, communication skills and problem-solving in everyday life. Such a package points the way to vocational courses that provide high-quality skills development, where you not only “learn” but also “learn to learn”.

As of early 2023, CRISP has rolled out this model to 200 universities, providing opportunities for approximately 10,000 underserved students in science and technology. It now plans to expand this model to 15 states, which would cover one lakh in the next two years.

CRISP’s AEDP experiment has the potential to be scaled up and shows how India’s skills problem can be solved. The solution is to make the skills aspirational and attractive enough for young Indians who are not academically inclined and/or do not have the means to succeed in fierce academic competitions.

In April 2007, South Korea changed the name of its vocational high schools to technical high schools. This change enabled vocational students to pursue higher-level academic studies. Similarly, here in India, NEP was launched in 2020 with an emphasis on vocational knowledge and practical skills, with flexibility to combine vocational courses and programs with regular academic programs.

Regular undergraduate programs in a UGC-recognized format in non-traditional disciplines such as retail, logistics and gaming would go a long way in bringing them at par with the traditional disciplines of arts and sciences. Doctorates in non-traditional areas, such as electric vehicle production or tourism improvement, could even be encouraged. This would go a long way towards reducing the stigma associated with professional disciplines.

The key innovation here is demand-driven skills, bridging the gap between industry and academia. When there are enough skilled workers, industry will emerge. All developed countries are rich in human capital.