In India, education without employment

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Context

Despite the ambitious goals of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, India’s education system continues to suffer from low graduate employability, poor industry linkage, and lack of innovation outputs. Critics argue that the system produces degrees with little market value and fails to meet the evolving demands of a knowledge-based economy.

Systemic Flaws in Vision and Policy Execution

Employability Crisis Ignored by NEP: The NEP 2020, hailed as an “educational renaissance”, ignores the shape-shifting needs of the job market, leading to a 2025 graduate employability rate of only 6%, nearly unchanged from 44.3% in 2023.
Lip Service to Reforms, Lacking Implementation: Despite promising flexibility (multiple entry/exit points), the NEP has only enabled low-quality e-commerce jobs without systemic pedagogical reform or skilling infrastructure.
Absence of Industry Representation in Policy Formulation: The committee drafting NEP lacked any member from industry or the business sector, resulting in policy formulations detached from economic realities and employment demands.

Research Quality, Rankings, and Accountability Deficit

Misleading Higher Education Rankings: Although 11 Indian universities entered the QS Top 500, India’s Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI) remains poor—ranked 16th out of 19 G-20 countries, reflecting low research quality despite increased quantity.
Non-Transparent Megaprojects with Public Funds: Projects like IMPRINT, Akash tablet, and CSIR-NMITLI were launched with great publicity but lack publicly available data on outcomes, raising concerns about value-for-money and accountability.
GII and Innovation Cluster Weaknesses: In the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2024, India ranked 39, behind Malaysia (33) and Türkiye (37). India’s top innovation clusters, like Bengaluru (Rank 56), perform far below global leaders like Cambridge (1) or Silicon Valley (6).

Start-Up Illusions, Regulatory Obsolescence, and Structural Myopia

Misunderstood Start-Up Ecosystem: Unlike global startups tackling deep-tech challenges, Indian start-ups often revolve around food delivery or digital marketplaces, lacking a foundation in indigenous science and technology.
UGC as a Barrier, Not a Facilitator: The University Grants Commission (UGC) retains both regulatory and financial control, but fails to show any empirical data linking pedagogy reforms to employability or skilling improvements.
Education Sans Depth, Breadth, and Methodology: While NEP claims to offer flexible curricula, it neither ensures depth (technical expertise) nor breadth (interdisciplinary agility), critical in the AI-driven and constantly evolving job market.

Practice Question:

Q. Critically examine the challenges posed by the current educational policy framework in ensuring employability in India. How can depth and breadth in higher education be balanced to meet the demands of a knowledge-based economy?

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