Why Indians are educated but unemployable? (Part 1 of A guide to India’s Unemployment Problem)
By: Aniket Jain
Tags: Employment, Education, India, Zubi, Jobs

Most people believe in the benefits of education, and a fact that it can turn their lives around. A survey found 71% of Indians willing to even borrow money for the education of their children.

But is it really the truth? Do we need more than just college degrees and schooling to help people take control of their lives? Let’s find out.

In a recent employability report by aspiring minds, it was found that over 80 per cent of engineers in India are unemployable as they lack the relevant technical skills required by the employers now.

There are lots of engineering graduates in India every year but very few of them are trained in the skills required by employers. There are several problems a student face during his university/college life, most of these problems are created by the education system of today.

The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) estimated that 11 million jobs were lost in 2018 — pushing the unemployment rate to 7.38%.

Most of the students are taught that getting grades in university is the most important task and not given any insights about the industry, work culture or the skills required for today’s new-age jobs. As a result, only a handful of students know about internships, industry talks/conference, projects or even the linguistic skills required by today’s companies. The only problem is not unemployment, even underemployment is a very big problem in the country, as writing for Hindustan Times, Manish Sabharwal says, “everybody who wants a job has a job; they just don’t have the wages they want or need.

Reasons for unemployment are:

There is a lack of faculty talking about industry application of concepts in class so students find themselves in a position where they have a lack of confidence when it comes to coding.

talking about industry application of concepts in class so students find themselves in a position where they have a lack of confidence when it comes to coding. Close to 80% of the engineers blamed a lack of focus and hands-on coding experience for this situation.

experience for this situation. Only 3.4 per cent of engineers have all technical, cognitive as well as linguistic skills required for software-related jobs in startups.

of engineers have all technical, cognitive as well as linguistic skills required for software-related jobs in startups. Only 3 per cent of engineers have new age technical skills in the areas which are booming now such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science and blockchain.

of engineers in the areas which are booming now such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science and blockchain. Thus, only 1.7 per cent of engineers have the skills needed to work in new-age jobs .

of engineers have the . Only 22.7 per cent of engineers have attended more than 1 talk by an industry professional .

of engineers have . Only 40 per cent of engineers do an internship and among those, only a mere 7 per cent do multiple internships .

of engineers and among those, only a . Apart from a lack of internships, engineers also have low employability because only 36 per cent do project beyond their curriculum. Thus, they don’t always build the skills to solve problems in a variety of situations.

These above metrics show us that there are some loopholes in our education sector which are leading to the problem of unemployment.

While keeping the above metrics in mind we may need to ask ourselves some big questions like, Is the theoretical education and college degrees enough for today’s world? What more can we do for students? And what can we do to solve these problems?