India is facing an emergency situation in the higher education segment, according to the India Labour Report by TeamLease Services . This has been caused due to low college enrollment, employability crisis of unskilled labour and lack of flexibility of the education sector, the report said.
"The issue of employability is centred on two challenges. The first one is lack of access to education and skills, and the second is rigour in education quality standards. Calculated investment and new technology can take care of the first issue. The second challenge is more about quality of students which results in aspiration mismatch between skills and job/salary expected. Hopefully, over a period of time, the market will start paying a premium in compensation for people with high quality vocational skills thereby turning the tide in favour of vocational training," said Judhajit Das, Chief HR Officer, ICICI Prudential.
The study informed that India’s 30% gross enrollment ratio objective by 2030 plans requires solutions that combine the needs of policy makers, employers and youth. Community colleges offering 2 year associate degree programs – not normal degrees on a diet but vocational education on steroids – combine all stakeholder needs. These colleges would end the dead end view of vocational education by allowing those with certificates and diplomas to convert them into associate degrees and degrees with additional study. They would expand geographic access via multiple delivery modes (small centers, large campuses, internet/ satellite campus and apprenticeships), and place employers at the heart of curriculum, certification and outcomes.
The study explained that despite enrollment growing from 2 lakh in 1947 to 1.6 crore in 2012, India still lags behind its international counterparts. The higher education gross enrolment ratio of India is 11% which is merely half of the world average and way behind developed countries (54%). "The low enrollment is compounded by an uneven spread of higher education; only five states have more than 20 universities and five have only one. Sixteen states do not have a single central university," the release stated.
The study showed that non-availability of courses, inadequate infrastructure facilities, inadequate financial resources, lack of flexibility and autonomy to the institutions among others have dented efforts in improving the quality and scale of education, employability and employment.
"India’s higher education challenge lies at the difficult trinity of enrollment, access and employability. Community colleges could be an important innovation because they are part ITI, part college and part employment exchange. This mezzanine layer of two-year programmes could increase enrollment by 8 million from small towns, unorganised workers and the traditionally disadvantaged," Manish Sabharwal, Chairman, TeamLease Services said.
It also pointed out that higher education system in India can scale up in quality and reach only by creating competition with transparent regulation. Some of the proposed solutions include legitimising distance education, fostering public-private partnership models, deregulating higher education and tweaking the skill and employment ecosystem.