A joint byline by – Manish Sabharwal and Sonal Arora; published in Mint: http://goo.gl/6AhFq5

The Provident Fund Organisation’s cadre restructuring will cost Rs2,000 crore and represents a massive abuse of its monopoly.
The eliminating of EPFO’s monopoly, however difficult, is the right thing to do for social security, formal employment, and employee welfare.

Is the monopoly of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) something painful but necessary like a root canal treatment, or painful and unnecessary—like being hit with a hammer on the head? EPFO is surely a painful hammer because of its high costs (it is the world’s most expensive government securities mutual fund and charges 3.5% of contributions as administrative charges), poor service (half of its accounts are orphaned because it has hostages rather than clients and withdrawal or transfer is painful), and atrocious design (it links account balances to employers rather than employees). A little noticed cadre restructuring approved by EPFO last month will add aboutRs.2,000 crore to its costs. EPFO not only camouflages self-interest as national interest (about 73% of its costs already go to past and present employees) but it is incompetent, inefficient, ineffective and, at the bottom of the pyramid, often corrupt. We’d like to make the case that ending EPFO’s monopoly is an idea whose time has come.

An objective review of our provident fund system will unearth many birth defects. How can workers live on half their salary and be forced to save 45% of their salary when the savings rate for people with incomes below Rs.15,000 per month is close to zero? Salary belongs to workers, so shouldn’t workers decide who handles their money? Shouldn’t the roles of regulators, policy makers or service providers be separated? Should provident fund be tax-free at all stages (contribution, accumulation and payout) for high wage workers voluntarily participating in the scheme? Why does the provident fund department have more than 50 million dormant accounts? In an age of cloud services and Aadhaar authentication, should a worker be required to submit claim forms in the office where he last worked? Wouldn’t the adoption of big data analytics lead to better compliance under Section 7A of the Act (inspections and enquiry procedures) rather than more offices and people?

An article in Economic Times talks about how more consolidation is expected in the online recruitment sector, with job portals losing market share to social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter; along with inputs from Rituparna Chakraborty.
More consolidation is expected in the online recruitment sector, with job portals losing marketshare to social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, experts say.

The global job industry is rapidly transforming because of wide technological advances. Over the last couple of years, online job portals have lost a significant ground to social media platforms as a talent sourcing channel, according to HR experts.

“Lines of business are blurring and if one doesn’t keep pace with same, one has to face redundancy or consolidation,” staffing services company TeamLease Co-founder and Senior VP Rituparna Chakraborty said.

Referring to the recent Randstad-Monster deal, she said “To begin with, one should expect more such mergers to happen in this space.”

Going forward, innovations in the areas of building reach, engaging and keeping track of ‘passive users’ and how one runs background analytics are expected, HR experts say.

“There are three key elements to this business – Reach, Engage and Match,” Chakraborty said, adding “if we fail to evolve in any of these aspects, given the changing preference of individuals and employers and given the penetration of smartphones and usage, we would eventually lose our relevance.”

New law applicable to establishments employing more than 10 persons
The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill, which was cleared by the Cabinet on Wednesday, got passed in Rajya Sabha on Thursday. The Bill provides for 26 weeks maternity leave in India, an increase from present 12 weeks The law will be applicable to all establishments employing 10 or more persons..

Most of the members supported the Bill. The members also demanded that surrogate mothers should get similar treatment in the Bill. Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said the matter would be looked into. According to Dattatreya, the benefit is applicable for two surviving children. He said 1.8 million women workers in the organised sector will get the benefit of the amendment.

“The very purpose of this Bill is to increase the participation of women in the workforce, which is decreasing day by day,” Dattatreya said. He said at the moment, only Canada (50 weeks) and Norway (44 weeks) offer more numbers of days than India.

An article in Times of India, talks about the recent The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill; along with inputs from Rituparna Chakraborty.
Retention of women employees in the workforce will improve with the passage of the Maternity Benefit Amendment Bill in Rajya Sabha. The bill will more than double paid maternity leave to 26 weeks from 12 weeks.

In India, the percentage of women in the workforce declines from 25% at entry level to 16% at mid-level and 4% at top levels. With the amendments identifying the need to allocate additional time to women for child rearing, experts believe this will bring down attrition levels.

Saundarya Rajesh, founder-president of Avtar Group, a leading talent strategy and diversity consulting firms, said, “This will prevent at least 20% of regretted attrition of women in the age group of 25 to 35, being faced by organizations.”

An article in Hindustan Times talks about “how Companies are discouraging the use of WhatsApp for office communication”; along with inputs from Rituparna Chakraborty.
Companies are discouraging the use of WhatsApp for office communication, saying the instant messaging app can only remain an informal and unofficial mode of interaction.

One can’t resign, ask for leave or send office work on WhatsApp, human resource folks at popular companies are telling employees.

Companies are discouraging the use of WhatsApp for office communication, saying the instant messaging app owned by Facebook can only remain an informal and unofficial mode of interaction. They fear losing sensitive data because of loopholes in the app.

With over a billion global users, a tenth of that in India, WhatsApp has to put its weight behind enterprise communication with features that allow users to create groups, and share videos and documents. It promises “end-to-end encryption” of all data shared over the platform.

But most companies are not convinced.

“Companies have no control over information that employees have in their WhatsApp account, especially after they left the organisation. If an employee loses her phone, the app can be misused,” said Rituparna Chakroborty, co-founder of staffing firm Teamlease Services.

Besides, employees think the app is an intruder, especially when somebody is on leave.

One of the most frustrating classifications of the last decade for India has been BRICS. We have little in common with commodity economies like Brazil, Russia, Indonesia and South Africa, which are commodity driven economies, with little economic complexity. India is economically complex; we make everything and do everything (not always well or at scale). The China question is even more pervasive; on our IPO roadshow earlier this year, an investor asked “Exactly 10 years ago, the Chinese economy was of the same size as India today; yet, they were growing at 13 per cent and you are growing at 7 per cent. How do you explain that?” My response was: the 6 per cent shortfall goes towards the fixed costs of democracy.

But there is more to thinking about our jobs and education situation in 2050 than democracy; we don’t have the same global growth, global trade or manufacturing opportunity that China had in 1978. The developed world faces secular stagnation, while the political backlash against free trade has just begun and manufacturing is much more labour-intensive than it was.

Predictions are always dangerous and difficult but we can say something for sure about 2050; Many more Indians will work in cities, with more than a million people (today, we only have 45 of these vs 385 in China. The gap between the college wage premium and skill wage premium will vanish, if not disappear. And 12 years of schooling with be mandatory, because the most important vocational skills are reading, writing, and arithmetic. The social signalling value of college will decline (already 31 per cent of retail salespeople in the US, 60 per cent of taxi drivers in Korea and 15 per cent of high-end security guards have a college degree).

Various forms of learning-by-doing and learning-while-earning like apprenticeships will substantially increase as a vehicle for accumulating skills (today India only has 300,000 apprentices, while Germany has 3 million, Japan 10 million and China 20 million). Employment will have changed from being a lifetime contract to a taxicab relationship, because employers will not be permanent institutions (the average life expectancy of a Fortune 500 company in the first list published in 1935 was 65; in the list published last month it was 15). Benefits will not be linked to employers but will be fully portable and linked to your Aadhar number (today 50 million of the goofy Provident Fund’s 100 million accounts are inactive accounts, with worker money orphaned or trapped).

E-coolies are paying the price of propping up a happening economy, says Sharmistha Ghosal
You’ve seen him climbing up the stairs of your building or waiting at the office reception area or zipping through the city on a two-wheeler. He is youngish, wears a T-shirt, sometimes a cap, both sporting the logo of the brand he works for, and on his back is a towering backpack.

Yes, he’s the e-coolie, the guy who delivers to your doorstep your online indulgences. And every day, he carries about 35-50kg weight on his back.

The e-commerce boom – according to a 2014 Google report, India will have no less than 100 million online shoppers by 2016 – has not only given urban India a new swagger, but has also generated jobs for a sizeable portion of the country’s unskilled and semi-skilled labour force. There is an increased demand in particular for delivery boys, who form the backbone of any e-commerce and logistics company.

According to Sonal Arora, assistant vice-president of TeamLease Services, a recruitment company, almost two lakh delivery boys were recruited across e-commerce, logistics and hyperlocal companies in the last three or four years.

However, for many of the delivery boys, the job comes at a cost. Take the case of Montu Manjhi, 28, who works for a Pune-based logistics company in Calcutta.

Ten months ago he was jobless, but now he earns a monthly salary of about Rs 15,000. In a single day, he delivers at least a dozen consignments. Had it not been for a debilitating back pain, he would have been a most contented man.

“I have a recurrent back pain which travels down to my waist,” he says.

Subroto Dey, who has been at it longer than Manjhi, is in a worse state. The 27-year-old commerce graduate is currently bedridden. “I tore a ligament while lifting a heavy item,” he says, as he awaits his turn at the orthopaedic department of IPGMER and SSKM hospital in Calcutta for surgery that will get him back on his feet.

“The condition of these delivery boys is no better than the coolies we are familiar with at railway platforms,” says Dr Snehadrit Mukherjee, a city-based orthopaedic surgeon who treats 20 to 30 such cases every day.

These men, mostly in their late 20s or early 30s, are also falling prey to early arthritic changes and severe long-term degenerative spine problems, besides a host of other bone-related problems, mostly caused by the heavy backpacks they carry.

“Bending down and lifting weights can tear the paraspinal muscle fibre around the waist, causing back strain. There can be neck muscle strain or even wrist ligament tear and tennis elbow. One minor injury leads to another, since the body lacks balance,” explains Dr Ananda Kishor Pal, head, department of orthopaedics, IPGMER.

The fact that most of them use two-wheelers to ferry around these heavy packages makes them more vulnerable. “It increases chances of fracture or dislocation of the spine. If a person brakes or comes to a halt suddenly, the axial loading might injure the spine and also the adjoining nerves, causing paralysis in extreme cases,” warns Dr Mukherjee. Axial loading refers to the application of weight or force along the course of the long axis of the body.

However, there is little relief available for these men, as they belong to the base of the labour pyramid. Dey has no health coverage and cannot shell out Rs 60,000-70,000 that will be needed for his surgery in a private hospital. And as he waits for his turn at state-run hospitals, he remains without a job.

Arora explains that since this is a nascent sector, there are no special rules or norms followed by the industry or mandated by the government.

“On an average, most delivery boys carry 25-40kg of weight. Many of the larger and organised e-commerce and logistics service providers offer basic medical insurance and employees are also covered under the government’s Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC),” she says. TeamLease has nearly 10,000 employees deputed to various clients in this sector, and they are all covered by a medical insurance plan and ESIC.

According to e-retail giant Flipkart, a check is kept on the weights the men carry. “We ensure that the weight doesn’t exceed a particular limit per delivery boy. No delivery boy working for eKart [Flipkart’s logistics unity] is overloaded,” says an official spokesperson. The company, which employs 14,000 delivery boys, remains silent on the specifics of the weight limit though. While enquiries to Amazon India and Swiggy elicit no response, Snapdeal has refused to comment on the issue.

Big Basket, an online grocery store, has about 1,100 express delivery executives across eight tier-I cities, including 50 in Calcutta. “We are constantly working on improving the convenience factor for the riders… We also take their feedback on how to improve the ergonomic design aspects of the delivery bags,” says Hari Menon, CEO of Big Basket.

So, in the absence of company policies, is there no preventive measure the delivery boys can take?

According to Dr Pal, many of the men lack the kind of physical fitness required of them for their kind of job. But rest is the medicine, holds Dr Sisir Kumar Mandal, an orthopaedic surgeon at Belle Vue Clinic. “But since they cannot afford to rest, we prescribe multivitamin supplements and painkillers,” he adds.

Giving your first interview can be quite unnerving. I remember the first interview I gave for a campus placement. After clearing two rounds comprising of a group discussion and a role play, the final stage was an interview with the panel.

It started off with a volley of questions beginning with a quintessential one “tell us about yourself” to “why did I choose my area of specialization”, so on and so forth. I was going strong till a question hit me – why should we hire you?

My traits were not good enough a reason for them to be convinced to find a right fit in me. Well, I did not make it, but it did prepare me for my next interview which I cracked and did land up in a decent job to begin my career.

Be prepared

So, to begin with my first tip is to be prepared for the interview. Do a research about the organization, industry and to an extent about the interviewer. It’s important to know the organization you are applying to. A glitzy brand may not have much to offer, hence it’s important to know the structure, culture, balance sheet, and it’s potential to grow.

You could even go through the press releases to know what’s latest with that organization.  On a macro level, you should do a thorough research about the industry trends that may impacts the organization and its future.

Your first job is an entry point into a career, hence it’s important to make an intelligent decision which a research can help. If you can study a bit about the interviewer, incase you happened to know who that person is going to be, it can put you at ease to an extent.  But rather than checking the facebook profile, it would be prudent to go through a Linkedin profile.

Don’t put a mask, be authentic

My second advice is to be authentic and not to fake. By putting a mask, you are fooling yourself and it will not take you far.  You need to put your best foot forward, but be genuine. Interview is a way to enter into a professional relationship. Your true self will be visible soon once you start working which can be detrimental to your career.

Know yourself

Interview is a selling process. As a candidate you are selling yourself for that position. At the same time, the organization is also selling the position to you to take up. My third tip is to know thy self and the position you are applying for. If you have to sell yourself to get that job, then you should be clear of how you can add value to the role.

”Being in a sales job, if you can’t articulate the message, you have killed your prospects right there. It’s the first five minutes of your sales meeting that determines its future course”

Hence to answer the question – “why should we hire you”, you need to align your traits, knowledge and skills with the role to be the right fit. Whether it’s your first or future interviews, you need to master the answer to this question, which is the key deciding factor for an interviewer. Do an introspection, identify not just your strengths but also your weak areas and take steps to overcome. Upon asking, you should be able to specify the measures taken by you, it displays your strive for improvement.

Articulate your point of view

The fourth tip to make an impression in an interview is to articulate your point of view. Communication skill plays a vital role. Apart from taking care of your verbs and adjectives, one should have clarity of thought while expressing.

Personally, I am very particular about this aspect. Being in a sales job, if you can’t articulate the message, you have killed your prospects right there. It’s the first five minutes of your sales meeting that determines its future course. Not only in sales, in any functional area, communicating internally or externally, clarity is a must.

Ask questions

Interview is an evaluation process. While you are being evaluated for the position, you should also appraise the same. My fifth tip is to ask questions or probe the interviewer. Your pre interview research will give you enough insight into the organization and the position; it should also give you enough queries to be clarified.

The skill development ministry will spend between 10% and 15% of the budget for creating a pool of workers for jobs created under programmes such as Make In India, Swachh Bharat and Digital India, said minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy. Photo: PIB

The cabinet on Wednesday approved an outlay of Rs.12,000 crore for providing job skills to and certifying 10 million young people over the next four years, advancing the government’s effort to create an employment-ready workforce for industry.

The central government will be responsible for meeting three-fourths of the target under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) and state governments for the remainder. The centre will allocate 25% of the approved expenditure to the states.

Skill development minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy said the cabinet’s approval of the second phase of PMKVY signalled the government’s focus on improving the efficiency and productivity of young Indians.

“This is a big step for us towards empowering the youth of our country and we are certain to strengthen the system and make training more effective with robust monitoring,” Rudy said.

The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to expand the available pool of employment-ready Indians to meet the requirements of industry, which has often complained that potential recruits do not possess job skills.

Last week, the cabinet approved a national apprenticeship promotion scheme under which five million people are to be trained by 2019-20 at a cost of Rs.10,000 crore.

Under PMKVY, six million people will be trained for handling specific jobs and four million certified as possessing vocational skills required for employment in industries, under the recognition of prior learning programme.

Private partners will implement the second phase of PMKVY under the oversight of the skill development ministry.

Both the government and industry say it is important to ensure the availability of a sufficient talent pool to take up the jobs that will be created as economic growth accelerates.

“Jobs are not getting created enough because of regulatory cholesterol, but with the change happening both at the centre and state levels, like ease of doing business, it will happen in the next couple of years. The point is we need to fix the supply side keeping in mind the demand,” said Manish Sabharwal, chairman and co-founder of training and staffing company TeamLease Services.

“In the skill development space, employer is the only God. So, we have to fix this skill and efficiency issue before demand side picks up,” he added.

In the last fiscal year, under phase one of PMKVY, the central government trained some 1.97 million people against a target of 2.4 million. But only 1.27 million of these have been certified, meaning the assessment aspect of the scheme needs to be strengthened.

Keeping that in mind, the government has now introduced a quarterly review of the scheme’s outcomes. The government will now pay training providers and assessment firms directly instead of handing over money to trainees.

The new version of the scheme will also include training people to work overseas, including Europe and central Asia.

People from the Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir and districts affected by Maoist violence will be encouraged to enlist for residential training.

The ministry will spend between 10% and 15% of the budget for creating a pool of workers for jobs created under programmes such as Make In India, Swachh Bharat and Digital India, said Rudy.

The programme will focus on improving accountability.

“A third-party agency would be appointed to monitor the validation of all training centers. Detailed guidelines would be framed for the sector skill councils, training partners, franchises and the assessment agencies with respect to revenue sharing, split of the fee between them and other desired parameters”, according to the guidelines for the programme.

In another decision on Wednesday, the cabinet allowed state-owned Indian Oil Corp. to join NTPC Ltd and Coal India Ltd in reviving Fertilizer Corp. of India Ltd.’s sick units in Sindri (Jharkhand) and Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh) and Hindustan Fertilizer Corp. Ltd.’s ailing unit at Barauni in Bihar.

Reviving these units is likely to meet the growing demand for urea in Bihar, West Bengal and Jharkhand, the government said.

Separately, the cabinet approved the transfer of government shares in ITI Ltd to a Special National Investment Fund (SNIF) to meet the capital market regulator’s requirement of a minimum 10% public holding in all state-run enterprises.

Government shares are being transferred to SNIF as a sale of shares in the ailing company is not feasible. The Fund will sell these shares eventually, with the proceeds being utilized for social sector schemes.

From 2017, the public holding requirement for state-owned companies will go up to 25%, on par with privately owned companies.

The statement issued after the cabinet meeting said ITI will be allowed to meet the 25% public shareholding norm by August 2017. The company, which had accumulated losses of Rs.5,166 crore as of 31 March 2015, is implementing a turnaround scheme now.

Attracting the best human capital needs moving PSUs into an independent holding company.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel said, “It is a folly to ignore realities; facts take their revenge if they are not faced squarely and well”. We should take the Sardar’s advice in three questions about our public sector units (PSUs). First, will most PSUs suffer the same long-run fate of Air India, BSNL, Ashok Hotels, and UCO Bank? Second, which is a bigger job: Secretary Steel or Chairman SAIL, Secretary Civil Aviation or Chairman Air India, Secretary Heavy Enterprises or Chairman BHEL? Finally, aren’t PSUs companies, and aren’t the skills for policymakers, regulators, and running a company different? I believe many PSUs can compete with the private sector, but not with their hands and legs tied, and that improved governance, better human capital, and higher accountability is only possible by moving PSUs out of various ministries into an independent holding company (Holdco).

PSU challenges are not uniquely Indian. An interesting recent book was The Public Wealth of Nations by Dag Detter and Stefan F?lster that says “The left demonises the use of market mechanisms to improve the state, and the right demonises the use of the state to address market failures. The debate between privatisers and nationalisers misses the point that asset management is more important than ownership.” The authors estimate that “the professional management of commercial assets held in public ownership could generate an annual yield of $2.7 trillion worldwide — more than current global spending on transport, power, water and communication” and lament that “at a time when tech entrepreneurs are reinventing the world, public policy makers are reinventing the wheel”.

For India, creating Holdco is a more doable choice than divestment because our seven policy backseat drivers (CAG, CVC, CBI, CIC, courts, press, and NGOs) wrongly substitute the accounting of accountability (did you follow rules and procedure) with the account of accountability (did you do the right thing). This makes divestment of even loss making PSUs almost impossible because of (a) the many ways to value a company; assets, competition, past spreadsheet, future spreadsheet, addressable market, management, brand, etc (b) value is what somebody is willing to pay at that moment in time, and (c) value may change in retrospect; every doctor knows that post-mortems have a certainty that prescriptions don’t.

The case for Holdco is strong. The first is performance; PSUs make poor returns on the invested capital of Rs 17,44,321 crore, many have monopolies and mispriced financial and physical resources, but only 163 of 290 PSUs are profitable, and the market capitalisation of all listed PSU banks is less than single private sector bank HDFC. The second question around CEO reporting matters because top talent isn’t attracted to being lorded over by somebody who is often close to retirement, often reached where they are because of standing in a line, and have not developed specialisation because of short tenures that encourage more poetry than prose. The CEOs of many PSUs have bigger, more complex, and more important jobs than many of the secretaries of the ministries they report into. Finally, it is obvious that policymaking, regulating a market, and running a company not only need different skills but have contradictory objectives; Socrates said a slave who has three masters is free.

Holdco’s mandate will be governance, human capital, and strategy. Governance will involve separating the roles of chairman and CEO, selecting the board, and performance management. Human capital will involve attracting the best talent because — as General Patton said — wars are fought with weapons but won by people. Finally, strategy in most PSUs has become goal-setting, but it’s actually the art of creating an unfair advantage. Holdco will evolve a strategy for every company that would manifest itself in financial or human capital infusion, consolidation, or sale. Contenders for first chairman of Holdco include Ratan Tata, Nandan Nilekani, Indira Nooyi of Pepsi, Rakesh Kapoor of Reckitt Benckiser, and many others.

In many sectors, recruiters are looking for “work-ready” graduates with clear evidence of job specific skills in addition to high-level graduate attributes

Students make a large personal and financial commitment to their education and expect a high return on both. A recent study has shown that over half of the graduate jobs are taken by people, who have already have had some experience in the company that hires them. A degree is no longer enough to graduate a satisfying future career. This is all the more true in light of the current economic climate. Given that higher education is already a big cost, the need to work for free even after leaving university only makes things even more expensive for students. In many sectors, recruiters are looking for “work-ready” graduates with clear evidence of job specific skills in addition to high-level graduate attributes. One of the main reasons students choose to study at university is to enhance their career prospects.

The biggest irony in our country is that despite having more than 10,000 open jobs a day, the unemployment rate is growing steadily. More than a million join the unemployment market each month, creating a social time bomb of sorts! Too many students graduate with the belief that their degree will lead straight to a job—setting the stage for a painful wake-up call when they realise that in most fields, a degree is simply a minimum qualification, not an instant pass to easy employment. Students’ interest is more likely to be maintained, if they can see the relevance of their studies to their future careers and life beyond university. Surprisingly this is not an Indian phenomenon alone. According to Macquarie University DVC Academic John Simons, “employment outcomes are why students choose a university”. However, the proportion of graduates finding full-time work within four months of leaving universities in Australia has deteriorated rapidly since 2012.

Recent studies show that there is a gap between traditional training and the skills actually needed in today’s job markets in the various domains like cognitive flexibility, creativity, knowledge transfer and adaptability. This phenomenon is not unique to states like Bihar or Kerala, wherein the unemployment rate has always been high but now even better performing state such as Gujarat is also experiencing a very high unemployment rate. According to the Gujarat government, between 2011 and 2014 more than 972,184 educated youth have got themselves registered at various employment exchanges across the state hoping for a job. Out of these, over 1.73 lakh are graduates, over 39,393 are postgraduates, 247 are PhD holders and 153 have MBBS degrees. The current state of unemployment is the by-product of an education model that is not outcome driven. The recent response of 23 lakh respondents for 689 peon jobs in UP is a reflection of the desperation as also the unemployability of the graduates.

A change in the higher educational way of teaching is the only solution to put off the social time bomb. Innovative teaching, learning and assessment methods help students engage in the education process and helps them to understand and have the added benefit of also helping them to develop attributes, which make them attractive to potential employers. Being able to solve new problems based on the knowledge acquired has become a desired outcome of technical education institutes. Students, who make an effort to fully participate in the total student experience (academic, co-curricular, extracurricular and work experience) benefit from a well-rounded education, contribute fully to the life of the university and community and hopefully have fun in the process. In order to bridge this educational gap, the long-term goal is to create a progressively more engaging laboratory experience with problem solving emphasis and various skill and knowledge acquisition. A practical in the laboratory is an essential part for verification of classroom theory in all subjects of engineering education. The ratio of theory to practical varies levels of education. In engineering degree, the ratio is generally 60:40. In engineering diploma, it is 40:60. In industrial training institutes (ITI) it is 20:80. This highlights the importance of practical sessions.

Employability needs to play an important role in the implementation of the colleges’ learning and teaching strategies. It has to be part of good learning practices being followed. Students, who engage in developing their employability are likely to be independent, reflective, and responsible learners. Out of the two million candidates, who join Moocs only 4 per cent complete the course making the entire exercise futile. What tends to work in India is the hybrid model, a combination that includes apprenticeships, on the job learning, classroom and digital learning in a bachelor’s programme that is a mix of classroom and digital.

Any university/college needs to be have three components for improving the employability of it’s students-teaching concepts theoretically, teaching concepts practically, part matching of skills to industry demands. Needless to say that the mix of each of the components may vary depending on the programme the college is teaching.

S S Mantha (HOD, department of mechanical engineering, VJTI and ex-Chairman, AICTE) says, “Estimates peg insufficiencies of 500 million unemployed youth by the year 2020. The dial is moving slowly but certainly and the year 2020 is also when the millennium’s first 20 year olds will be looking for their spring to see how they come on board with what is happening on the streets and alleys around them. If a paradigm that is based on restricting education and skills to fit the available space of employment and opportunities or as a political expediency either in the education space or in the employment sector is proposed and is perforce allowed to settle, we could be staring down the barrel of a civil war. Instead of retrograde measures like restricting number of colleges or suggesting that they be closed, we need to improve the school systems to have better and more endowed children pursuing higher education, create newer education opportunities like blended learning, virtual universities and increase massively the employment opportunities. Make in India, Skill India and Digital India are in the right direction though their delivery models need a rethink. This would create wealth for our citizens with a consequent rise in the countries’ economy.”

Sunita, a diploma holder in Electronics from rural Haryana, has been struggling to find a job since last 1 year. Like Sunita, there are lakhs of kids who are graduating every single day but finding it extremely difficult to get a job, mainly due to a lack of capability and skills. About 90% of the job openings today need skills which are missing in almost 90% of our youth, even among postgraduates. Yes, 15 years of education does provide them with a qualification, but does not make them job-ready. Poor infrastructure and lack of quality control are the primary reasons for the low grade output.

As per a recent study, 8 out of 10 engineers are not fit for jobs. Similarly, only 7% of management graduates from tier B and C cities are employable, while those who do get jobs, earn an average salary of Rs 10,000. The ground reality is that current education fails to inculcate employability skills in students.

While degrees are what we yearn for, skills are what an employer looks for. The best and most accepted skill learning programme is apprenticeship. Globally, apprenticeships are a popular platform to build a career by the virtue of learning by doing. In Austria, 40% of the kids enter the job market through apprenticeships. In Germany, 2.7% of the workforce operates under apprenticeships. Ideally, India should have 15 million apprentices but we have never crossed a figure of 3 lakh apprentices ever since The Apprentices Act was passed in 1961.

Apprenticeships are a great way to build a career. Whether you have just passed out of school or have dropped out of college, apprenticeship can pave a strong career path for you. Let’s take a look at some of the many benefits of apprenticeships:

Hands-on experience: Apprenticeship or learning by working under an able person or organisation will help one understand the concepts studied or preferred by the industry better. It helps one apply one’s knowledge and learn while working. Unlike an internship, which is largely short-term mandated by the curriculum and not the employer, in apprenticeship, one will have to hit the ground running. It gives one an opportunity to actively participate and experience the real world of work. It offers one a chance to put the learned skills into practice and evaluate the stream of education and the job it offers are of their liking.

Multiple options: Historically, apprenticeships were associated with the manufacturing sector only. However, times have changed and apprenticeships are being increasingly welcomed by other sectors as well. This allows youngsters to explore different functional sectors, letting them identify their strengths and pursue a career in the industry of their choice.

Flexibility: Apprenticeships are flexible in nature as they are not restricted to just once or twice a year, which is typically the case with our classroom education. Such programmes can be undertaken at any time of the year.

Steady income: In most sectors and job roles, companies offer apprentices monthly income in the form of a stipend. As per the last amendment in The Apprentices Act, stipend has been improved significantly. Today, stipend is benchmarked to semi-skilled wages, which may vary from Rs 7,000-9,000 per month, depending on the state’s minimum wages.