The other day I read a news item of a direct relationship between higher education and unemployment.

It reminded me of a talk I had given in Vadodra in a NHRDN seminar on a similar  subject about 9 years ago! So pretty much nothing has changed except the semantics.

Actually the problem is more severe  of Employability than .  We all know in HR how on recruitment we all struggle to get the right person.  We often tend to blame the line Managers for being too choosy and  we build defence for delay around too many rejections, the expectations are high etc.  Though there is merit in saying that one needs to develop talent and we always don’t get readymade people for roles, there is also a difficulty for the line manager to accept someone who may not be able to deliver and as a result he ends up under achieving.

The problem needs to be addressed through actually Industry Academia partnership whereby we bring in a lot more application-oriented curriculum than what it is currently.  But again, its known what we need to do is much more than discussing about it.

Here are some of my thoughts:

• As many of us as possible we should have teaching sessions with students.  We should invest time there.
• Influence the decision makers to increase Industry Placement period and not restrict it 2/3 months
• As much as we take student interns we should take Professor interns to let them know what Industry needs
• Whole heartedly participate in Graduate Apprenticeship Scheme, not for compliance but for skilling young workforce

Only with this kind of partnership the employability factor will be tackled and the students will also  grow in confidence to face the industry.

Currently Industry has to invest almost an year in students to make them job-ready.  That time will come down considerably and this whole Unemployment issue will get addressed.

In conclusion the solution of the problem is at a different place than growth.  We all know we want to recruit but we don’t get and the opportunity gets delayed for those who are in job Market.