Tamanna Joshi et. al.

, Journal of Management Research and Analysis (JMRA)

Available online at http://jmraonline.com
ISSN: 2394-2770, Impact Factor: 4.878, Volume 05 Issue 03, September 2018, Pages: 142-150

SKILL DEVELOPMENT: ENHANCING EMPLOYABILITY IN INDIA

1
Tamanna Joshi and 2 Mukesh Pandey
1
(PhD student, College of Agribusiness Management, GBPUAT, Pantnagar, India)
2
(Professor, College of Agribusiness Management, GBPUAT, Pantnagar, India)

India can become the world’s largest provider of skilled workforce for the world. In order to prepare for this,
there is a need for mapping of manpower requirements, not just in India, but globally as well. I call for constant updating
of training programmes and syllabi to ensure that the youth is exposed to latest technology and industry
environment. The Government would work to promote both apprenticeship and entrepreneurs. It is important to
predict the possibilities of the future, and prepare for them today itself.
PM Modi’s remarks at the Launch of “National Skill Development Mission” on July 15, 2015
India, with its forecasted GDP growth at 8% plus for the next few years, is predicted to become among
the four most dominant economies in the world by the year 2050 besides Brazil, Russia and China 1. India is known
to possess a significant demographic dividend due to its large and growing population in the 15 to 59 year age
group estimated to be upwards of 600 million currently. The size of India‘s workforce population will swell to
950 million in 2026 from 775 million in 2008. Moreover, by 2020, the average Indian will only be 29 years old,
compared to 37 in China & US, 45 in West Europe and 48 in Japan. Experts worldwide view this unique
demographic dividend as India‘s strategic competitive advantage, which can help it exercise collective wisdom
in industry, academia and public service leadership.
The World Development Report2 emphasizes an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate growth and
reduce poverty in India courtesy its increasing youth population by making its key resource i.e. labour more
productive. If India is to attain its dream of becoming a global economic power, it needs two things: (1) proper
infrastructure i.e. power, roads, irrigation, healthcare, nutritional security and sanitation (2) skilled people be it in
manufacturing, services or agriculture. Millions of young children in the bottom of the pyramid groups of India
never complete primary school. Even among those who do, poorly qualified teachers, very high student-teacher
ratios, inadequate teaching materials and outmoded teaching methods result in a low quality of education that
often imparts no real learning. This difference will make it difficult for India to achieve parity with China, which
has done phenomenally well compared to India in school education especially in areas of manufacturing, over
the long run.
A nation‘s higher education system has the greatest impact on enhancing the earnings of its citizens and its
consequent economic development. India ranks third in terms of graduates output next to that of USA and China. A
NASSCOM-McKinsey study3 estimates that around 500 thousand technical graduates, 2.3 million graduates and
over 300 thousand post-graduates pass out from over 350 universities, 18,000 colleges and 6,000 ITIs of India
every year. India has close to 9700 engineering colleges, majority of whom have opened in the last two decades.
This manpower advantage underpins India‘s recent economic advances but masks deep-seated problems within
India‘s education system.
Most important being, taking advantage of the demographic dividend, which is both — the biggest
opportunity and the biggest concern — for the country. With only 2.3 per cent of the total workforce in India
having undergone formal skill training as compared to 68 per cent in the UK and 52 percent in the US, the quantum
of the challenge is still high.
The present government has made skills and jobs one of its focus areas from the beginning of its term.
4
A report on National Skill Development Mission (July 2015), the Prime Minister launched an ambitious mission
to impart skills training to 400 million people by 2022 and has a dedicated Ministry of Skill Development and
Entrepreneurship. Employers complain that job-seekers do not have the skills they look for; there is little evidence
yet that curricula with these objectives in mind have been designed, or that new and affordable training institutes
have been set up on a mass scale. Job creation has not kept pace with India‘s demographic momentum, and that
will in the coming days pose a problem for a skilled workforce.
The problem is that the previous government talked the same talk on skills but was able to achieve precious little;
the proportion of young adults who had received vocational training was virtually unchanged between 2004-05
and 2011-12. Promises of corporate and foreign partnerships on skilling are pouring in, but how these mass
skilling programmes will take off is unclear.
The Labour Bureau‘s survey report5 for 2013-14 reveals India‘s training infrastructure which mainly
consists of government Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and Industrial Training Centers (ITCs) currently has a
capacity of 3.1Million seats and is vastly inadequate to meet the diverse skill requirements of the population.

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Tamanna Joshi et. al., Journal of Management Research and Analysis (JMRA)
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ISSN: 2394-2770, Impact Factor: 4.878, Volume 05 Issue 03, September 2018, Pages: 142-150

While almost 90% of the 450Million jobs in India require vocational skills (Figure 1), currently only 7% of
youth (15 to 29 years) receive any kind of formal or informal vocational training. Taking cognizance of this
deficit between demand and supply, the government has set an ambitious plan of training 500Million individuals
by 2022, translating to training 42Million a year. The 11th plan emphasizes on the need for Public Private
Partnership (PPP) to make this a reality. The National Skill Development Mission, under the Prime Minister‘s
Council has been entrusted with meeting 30% of this target by providing viability gap funding to the private
sector.
Figure 1: Share of population (15 yrs & above) receiving vocational training (in %)

rural & urban rural Series 2

11.3

Source: Labour Bureau, Ministry of Labour and Employment

The scale of the skilling challenge that India faces, and the urgency involved is that Fewer than one in 10
adult Indians has had any form of vocational training, and even among those who have, the type of training is
not the sort of formal skilling that employers seek – the majority had either acquired a hereditary skill or learned
on the job. Just 2.2 per cent in all had received formal vocational training. In comparison, 75 per cent of the
workforce in Germany and 80 per cent in Japan have received formal skills training. Even among the BRICS
countries, India lags behind – nearly half the Chinese workforce, for example, is skilled. Very few Indians get a
technical education in medicine, engineering or agriculture; fewer than one in ten Indians is a graduate, and
among those who are graduates, the majority gets undergraduate degrees in arts, science or commerce. The
problem is more acute in rural areas and for women. Without access to affordable and appropriate skills training,
young people, particularly those leaving rural areas and small towns for big cities, will be stuck in low-wage,
insecure jobs that will leave them in want or poverty.
The average age of India‘s population by 2020 is projected to be the lowest in the world—around 29 years
compared to 37 years in China and the United States of America, 45 years in West Europe, and 48 years in Japan.
While the global economy is expected to witness a shortage of young population of around 56 million by 2020,
India will be the only country with a youth surplus of 47 million. India‘s demographic transition makes it imperative
to ensure employment opportunities for millions of youth each year. Alongside employment, skill development is
equally important as over the years jobs have become more skill-intensive with changes in technology as well as
increased inter-linkages across economic activities.
The skill development issue in India is pertinent both at the demand and supply level. Generating
employment is definitely a challenge given the enormity of population entering workforce each year. From the
supply side, the issue is primarily related to employability of the workforce due to varying reasons ranging from
poor education, lack of training facilities, inadequate skilling, quality issues leading to mismatch of skill
requirements, and poor perception of vocational skilling vis-à-vis formal education. These have inadvertently
created skill shortages and also contributed to higher unemployment. Hence, both employment and employability
are key factors of concern today.
Unfortunately, the current size of India‘s formally skilled workforce is very small. As per the latest
survey by the Labour Bureau6 for 2013-14, only 6.8 percent of persons aged 15 years and above have received
or were receiving vocational training, of which only 2.8 percent was through formal channels while 4 percent
was through the informal system. In contrast, skilled workforce in other countries is much higher – Korea
(96%), Germany (75%), Japan (80%) and United Kingdom (68%).
The formally skilled labour force, 74% have higher secondary or higher education levels, and amongst
the labour force with informal skills, 78% of the workforce has completed only middle or lower education. Such

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Tamanna Joshi et. al., Journal of Management Research and Analysis (JMRA)
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skewed nature of skilling can be attributed to two factors – a) the education level entry requirements in the current
skill set-up makes it difficult for workers with minimal education to access formal skills training; and b) lack of
education also impedes the ability to absorb higher level of skills.
The current annual skilling capacity, as per the report7 presented by Labour Bureau (2014) including
training for the farm sector, in India is estimated at only 7 million. The table below highlights the dismal state of
training capacities at the ITIs, which are a key source of skill training in India. Enrolments in vocational training
are way below the enrolments in formal education. As against the enrolment of 23.76 million students in higher
education, the skill training capacities in ITIs is mere 1.69 million. Training partners of NSDC have collectively
trained 3.4 million youths in 2015-16.
Table 1: No. of ITIs with total Seating Capacity (as of 8 Sep 2014)
Region No. of Govt. Seating Number of Seating Total ITIs Total seating
ITIs capacity private ITIs capacity capacity at
(Govt.) (private) ITIs
North India 813 130818 3757 458837 4570 589655
South India 437 100828 3056 347926 3493 448754
East India 209 58250 1569 250301 1778 308551
West India 825 208474 1298 137402 2123 345876
GRAND 2284 498370 9680 1194466 11964 1692836
TOTAL
Source: Labour Bureau, Ministry of Labour and Employment
Table 2: Enrollment in Higher Education in India Level
Enrollment in Enrollment in Total % share
University affiliated colleges
Departments/Col
leges
Graduate 2,125,559 18,104,033 20,229,592 85.12
Post Graduate 774,557 2,160,432 2,934,989 12.35
Research 156,845 43,885 200,730 0.85
Diploma/ 156,909 242,740 399,649 1.68
Certificate
Grand Total 3,213,870 20,551,090 23,764,960 100
Source: University Grants Commission, Annual Report 2013-14
Another concern would be to ensure that ground level implementation of skill policies happen at the
same speed at which the youth are coming into the workforce. The creation of
National Policy on Skill Development and Entrepreneurship is an extremely important step towards the same. It
aims to provide an umbrella framework to all skilling activities being carried out within the country, to align them
to common standards and link the skilling with demand centres. This new Skill Development and
Entrepreneurship Policy would form the foundation of Skill India Mission, which can provide an impetus to
coordinated effort in skill development initiatives of various departments and ministries.
Challenges for the skill training segment will have to be addressed — one, aligning student aspirations
with industry expectations on salaries and job roles; two, convincing employers to hire the skilled force rather than
looking for a cheaper resource, this when the primary challenge faced by over 75 per cent of Indian
businesses is the shortage of technical or specific skills. The skills development segment has a serious
problem. The people you want to train, you don‘t know where they are. All the money goes into hunting for
them. Then, they don‘t have money to pay you. A lot of people get trained and do not return. ―Though NSDC
funds a lot of these ventures, barring a few that are directly linked with some schools, nobody has been able to
make money in skill development.‖ It has also happened that youth seek training and decline to take up a job
offer preferring to go back to their home town.
Alongside the daunting challenge of skilling millions of youth entering workforce each month, India also
faces a huge challenge of evolving a skill development system that can equip the workforce adequately to meet
the requirements of the industry. The workforce needs to be trained across four levels, from the high end
specialized skills for ‗White Collar‘ jobs to the low-level skills of the ‗Rust Collar‘ jobs. Moreover, these skills
have to be adequately linked to the available job opportunities.
Several factors have inhibited the skill development in India to scale up to the desired levels. The skill
development system in India is plagued with multiple issues related to awareness, perception, cost, quality and
scale.

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Tamanna Joshi et. al., Journal of Management Research and Analysis (JMRA)
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ISSN: 2394-2770, Impact Factor: 4.878, Volume 05 Issue 03, September 2018, Pages: 142-150

Inadequate scale, limited capacity

The existing infrastructure, both physical and human, is grossly inadequate considering the projected
demand for skilled labour. While there is a need to create additional capacity in existing institutes, at the same
time there is a need to create an adequate infrastructure even in small towns and villages.
In terms of faculty, too, the training infrastructure is inadequate. For instance, corresponding to the current seating
capacity of about 1.7 million trainees at ITIs, there is a need of almost 85,000 trainers (considering 20:1
student/faculty ratio). As against this, the seating capacity for various trainers‘ programme of DGET is just 4,438,
which is far from adequate to meet the requirement.
Linking of student profile & skill areas to industry requirements
It is incumbent for players to establish the right industry linkages and ensure that their choice of
students and skill areas are driven by industry requirements. Given the current shortage of skilled labour, the
industry would benefit tremendously if their needs are addressed, creating the possibility of an added revenue
stream for the vocational training provider. Career Launcher‘s Livelihood Skills Program focuses on training
underprivileged youth across multiple Government schemes. The courses offered are of about 2 to 3 months
duration and offer training across several skills such as air-conditioning repair, refrigeration mechanics and
plumbing.
Lack of uniform guidelines
Apart from the Ministry of Labour & Employment and the MHRD, there are 17 ministries that are
currently working in the area of skill development. Several of these ministries are running one of more
vocational training schemes that involve private partnerships. The guidelines for private players differ
significantly from one scheme to the other. There are differences with respect to infrastructural requirements,
limits on revenue per student, screening and approval criteria and terms for release of payments across schemes.
Even for the same central government scheme, there could be varying terms and conditions across different states
where it is being implemented. The resulting complexity for the private player is immense. Linkage of Payments
with Outcomes the National Skill Development Policy released in 2009 emphasized on the need for linkage of
payments to outcomes or placements after completion of training.
Therefore most schemes tie in a part of their pay-outs to actual placements achieved after the training.
In some schemes, the placement of the student may be verified anytime in a 1 year window after the completion
of the training. Placing a large number of students and in some cases also having to ensure their employment up to
a year can be a formidable task for private players.
Student Sourcing
This is probably the most fundamental challenge that most training providers face. Most of this
challenge. The awareness about vocational training programs and resulting benefits are low. Drop- out ratios
amongst students can be high as well since the student does not attach much value to a training that is paid for by
the government.
Cost concerns
Skill development initiatives in India continue to be largely dependent upon the government funds or
public-private ventures. Owing to high capital requirements and low return on investments, skill development is
often looked at as a non-scalable model and remains underinvested. Additionally, a fee-based model also faces
challenges as prospective students are often unwilling or unable to pay high fees for training. Even the bank‘s
willingness to lend for skill development activities is low as educational loans are perceived as high risk products
due to uncertainty with respect to future employment.
Quality concerns
There is a serious mismatch between the industry‘s requirements and the skills imparted in educational
and training institutes, especially for the mid-level skills requiring some expertise on handling of machinery. To
tackle this problem, considerable improvement of the quality of training is needed. The issue relates to the quality
of infrastructure, trainers, as well as curricula and pedagogy. In terms of infrastructure, the institutes often lack
appropriate machinery to give students hands-on training. Even the course curricula often are outdated,
redundant and non- standardized. Additionally, the lack of industry faculty interaction on course curricula leads
to irrelevant training modules.
The availability of good quality trainers is also a key concern. The quality of trainers is affected due to
limited efforts towards re-training and skill improvement of trainers. There is a lack of focus on development of
trainers with a clear career path which can make this an aspirational career choice and can ensure regular adequate
supply of good-quality trainers in every sector.
Mobility concerns
In India, educational qualification is generally preferred over vocational training as former is associated
with better employment opportunities, in terms of pay as well as quality of work. Additionally, there is limited
mobility between formal education and vocational training in India due to lack of equivalent recognition for the

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Tamanna Joshi et. al., Journal of Management Research and Analysis (JMRA)
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ISSN: 2394-2770, Impact Factor: 4.878, Volume 05 Issue 03, September 2018, Pages: 142-150

latter; a student enrolled in vocational training often cannot migrate to institutes of higher education due to
eligibility restrictions.
However, under the on-going National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF), attempts are being made
to address the mobility issue by recognition of prior learning and establishing a credit system for skills, knowledge
and experience gained by an individual either formally or informally. NSQF is expected to enable multiple-entry
and exit between vocational education, skills training, general education, technical education and job markets.
Skill requirements by 2022
The quantitative as well as qualitative skill gaps can further widen going forward if there are no or
limited efforts towards addressing the key supply related issues. As per the skill gap study conducted by the
National Skill Development Cooperation over 2010 - 2014, there is an additional net requirement of 109.73
million skilled manpower by 2022 across twenty four key sectors.
As India strengthens its base as a knowledge economy, there would be additional requirements to the highly
skilled workforce in sectors like financial services, IT, Bio-technology, Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals. Further,
with value added industries being given a policy push under the ‗Make in India‘ initiative, highly skilled workforce
would also be required in high-end industries.
Table 3: Incremental Human Resource Requirement across Sectors by 2022
Projected Incremental
S.No Sector Employment in 2013 employment by 2022 requirement from
(million) (million) 2013-2022
(million)
1 Auto and Auto Components 10.98 14.88 3.9
2 Beauty and Wellness 4.21 14.27 10.06
3 Food Processing 6.98 11.38 4.4
4 Media and Entertainment 0.4 1.3 0.9
5 Handlooms and Handicrafts 11.65 17.79 6.14
6 Leather and Leather Goods 3.09 6.81 3.72
7 Domestic Help 6 10.88 4.88
8 Gems & Jewellery 4.64 8.23 3.59
9 Telecommunication 2.08 4.16 2.08
10 Tourism, Hospitality and Travel 6.96 13.44 6.48
11 Furniture and Furnishing 4.11 11.29 7.18
12 Building, Construction and Real 45.42 76.55 31.13
Estate
13 IT and ITES 2.96 5.12 2.16
14 Construction Material and Building 8.3 11 2.7
Hardware
15 Textile and Clothing 15.23 21.54 6.31
16 Healthcare 3.59 7.39 3.8
17 Security 7 11.83 4.83
18 Agriculture 240.4 215.6 (24.8)
19 Education/ skill development 13.02 17.31 4.29
20 Transportation and Logistics 16.74 28.4 11.66
21 Electronic and IT Hardware 4.33 8.94 4.61
22 Pharma and Life Sciences 1.86 3.58 1.72
23 BFSI 2.55 4.25 1.7
24 Retail 38.6 55.95 17.35
Total 461.1 581.89 120.79
Removal of Duplication in Retail (10.37) (21.43) (11.06)
Sector
Total Requirement 450.73 560.46 109.73
Source: Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship
The Indian Government has laid a special focus on expanding and improving the skill education and
training in the country. The New Policy on Skill Development and Entrepreneurship contains several initiatives
which, if implemented earnestly, will go a long way in minimizing the demand- supply gap and challenges
related to skill mismatch with industry requirements.
With increased thrust on manufacturing under the ‗Make in India‘ programme, the need for revisiting

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Tamanna Joshi et. al., Journal of Management Research and Analysis (JMRA)
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ISSN: 2394-2770, Impact Factor: 4.878, Volume 05 Issue 03, September 2018, Pages: 142-150

and improving India‘s skill development mechanism becomes all the more critical. It has been globally recognised
that an efficient vocational education and training plays a critical role in the industrial development and
manufacturing success, as in the case of economies like Germany and China. The study of skill development
models of three countries done in this report highlights some best practices that can be utilised in India‘s skill
development eco-system.
Integration of skill development with formal education system, mobilisation of students for skill
development by removing misapprehensions and perceptions about vocational trades, investing in creation of new
training capacities for students as well as teachers, utilisation of idle public infrastructure to provide skill
training in remote corners of the country, encouraging industry to actively participate in training through
provision of apprenticeship as well as through direct involvement in curriculum design and teachers training,
adopting innovative skill development delivery mechanisms are the much-needed steps to meet the skill related
challenges today.
Wonderful things like formation of sector skill councils and formulation of the national skills
qualification frameworks, among others, have happened between 2009 and 2014. Revision means taking those
things that continue and introducing new things, so that the future is in terms of a policy, which is current in
nature.
NSDC, a public-private partnership to promote skill development, also provides funding to build scalable, for-
profit vocational training initiatives. Over the past four years, NSDC‘s partners have delivered over two
million skilled people in more than 25 sectors. The type of courses affiliated under NSDC
include those conducted by NSDC approved training partners, which should be certified by Sector Skill Councils
(SSCs) as well as courses that might not be certified by SSCs as no SSC exists in that area. The table below presents
the efficiency of NSDC in placing the trained people:
Table-4 : NSDC-Report Card
Year Skilled/Trained Placed in jobs
2010-11 20,484 14,399
2011-12 1,81,691 1,44,238
2012-13 4,02,506 2,16,741
2013-14 13,49,619 6,46,394
2014-15 (till February) 20,67,859 4,51,845
Total 40,22,159 14,73,617
Source: NSDC-website
National Skill Development Organization has exceeded its target to train individuals and is on track to
achieve their targets. They skilled about 3.3 million people last year and are planning to skill six million people
this year. NSDC was formed to achieve the target of skilling and up-skilling 150 million people by 2022 by
fostering private sector initiatives in the skill development space. The body is also working closely with the
Centre. The STAR (Standard Training Assessment and Reward) scheme, which provides monetary reward to
candidates for undergoing skills training, is one such initiative.
According to a report8 R.Anita ,V.K.Swamy (2016) A skill gap study has been conducted by NSDC in
2014, which indicates that there is an additional net requirement of 119.2 million skilled manpower in 24 key
sectors by 2022. It is observed that today the total workforce in the country is estimated at 487.4 million, of which
approximately 51 per cent is in the non-farm sector.
In a knowledge-based economy and knowledge-based society, only those with the highest skills can
advance and progress. Some of the strategies, which if employed can enhance employability are:
1. India plans to quadruple the number of its universities in the next ten years—an admirable goal and a huge
challenge. Its goal should also probably be that at least 20 of these are the world‘s best. Shanghai University has
become recognized as the authoritative voice on leading universities. Its latest ranking does not show a single
Indian university in the top 300. China itself has six9. India must concentrate on creating at least twenty multi-
disciplinary, research-oriented universities, which are comparable to the best universities in the East Asian
region if not with the best at the global level. Adequate financial assistance should then be provided to upgrade
infrastructure, laboratories, instrumentation, uninterrupted water/electric supply, waste disposal systems, proper
computational, and internet and library facilities. The establishments of IISERs in the country have attempted
to achieve the same goal by taking advantage of the already existing infrastructure in select universities.
2. Every state of India should have at least one university, which is at par with the best central universities with
respect to funding, academic and research standards. This will also need special assistance to upgrade research,
instrumentation, library and other infrastructural facilities.

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3. In India, the higher education sector and the industrial sector have worked in isolation with each other. Our
universities must build relationships with industry and collaborate with them in designing the requisite
curriculum for supplying employable graduates in the industry and business organizations. The future of industry
also depends on the availability of trained graduates not only for its day-to-day working but also for incorporating
excellent, innovative approaches. Some industry-academic connection programs are not working out as expected
e.g. summer training for MBA students. Most of these students are assigned worthless, dummy projects and
corporate managers rarely devote quality time or exhibit enthusiasm and sincerely towards them. It is extremely
important that the industry get involved to support institutions. There is huge obsession with capacity creation but
emphasis should be shifted to quality i.e. how is it that India can create quality capacity?
4 .Scientists at top-notch institutions like TIFR, BARC, ISRO, IIRS, SAIL, DRDO, FRI, CAIR and other institutions
should be encouraged to teach an undergraduate class on an annual basis and to be on the doctoral committees of
PhD students. It is important to create prestige-based economic incentives for scientists so that they interact and
can add excellent value in terms of real world applications to academic institutions. It will create a win-win
situation both for the young students who will get inspired and for the research institutions who will gain access
to a steady stream of good quality talent pool.
5. India can share ‗best practices‘ with leading universities from elsewhere around the world. Given the incredible
growth prospects for professional education, leading foreign universities are eager to ‗expand‘ into India, either by
developing an Indian campus or tying up with local entities that already exists. There are compelling arguments
to allow foreign universities to operate in India. First, it will save India about $4 billion in foreign exchange and
help reverse brain drain. Most importantly, the students will get international quality education, faculty and
research facilities within Indian setting at cheaper prices. India needs foreign investments because the
government does not have money needed to invest in higher education and private sector is unwilling to
investment in education. One of these successful collaboration model is the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research
and Technology wherein several hundred Professors, post-doctoral scholars and students from MIT and in
education.
Singapore sits within the campus of National University of Singapore, and tackled infectious diseases,
environmental modeling, and biomedical research. However, we must avoid any pitfalls due to low ranked
universities walking in with pure commercial interests. A commission made of economists, sociologists and
educationists should be set up to do a study of how foreign universities impacted countries like Singapore which
attracted some top-notch institutes like the University of Chicago, INSEAD, Tisch School of Arts, DigiPen
Institute of Technology etc. They should also study how countries like Singapore made sure that only quality
universities were allowed. The economic impact in terms of remittances and employability of these educated
students‘ needs research.
6. Foreign universities should be made to commit resources towards active research in frontier areas before
allowing them to operate in India. While not allowing fund transfers scares universities in terms of flexibility
over the long-term, a certain high level of initial resource commitment in the beginning will keep away pure
profit seeking organizations. There should be a minimum research expenditure made by the foreign university
operating in India. For example, a small university like Iowa State University spends $60 million a year in US.
Universities like Duke, INSEAD are required to have a certain number of PhD students and faculty with high
research credentials to operate in Singapore campus. India will need much larger collaboration than Singapore
given the relative sizes of our economies. Even lesser institutions in USA can provide value in a large country
like India. The Government needs to think about creative ways of setting guidelines that will encourage
institutions doing it for the right reasons.
7. While India might seem like a natural location to expand off shoring into R&D, it is hampered by some serious
structural problems that range from not enough home grown researchers to a lack of government support. India
produces about 300 thousand computer science graduates a year yet it produces only about a hundred computer
science PhDs, a small fraction of the 1,500-2,000 that get awarded in the United States or China, every year10.
Students in India are not exposed to research from an early age and there is no career path for innovation as there
is tremendous pressure to get a 'real' job. India lacks the kind of environment found in say, Silicon Valley,
where universities, venture capitalists and startups encourage innovation. Government must study the R & D
policy of China so that India could move up the value chain faster even if a small percentage of its engineering
graduates went into research. Government should also analyze the reasons why MNCs want to set up R&D
facilities in India so that it can motivate Indian universities to set up research universities in India and facilitate
collaboration/integration between the home institutions and the satellite institutions.
8. Privatization of higher education is a fledgling but welcome trend. Higher education requires it to ensure
creativity and quality whereas liberalization and globalization demands it. Considering the chronic paucity of
resources, the government should gradually unburden itself from higher education and instead focus on realizing
the goal of universal and quality school education. Unfortunately, politicians or non-academicians who run them

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as brazenly commercial establishments own most of these private institutions, especially in Maharashtra and
Southern Indian states. These private sector institutions despite their low quality have served as a fuel for much
of the outsourcing boom in the country. As we seek to move higher up the outsourcing ladder, we need to tighten
quality, but at the same time enhance numbers. The challenge in higher education at the beginning of the new
millennium therefore is to find answers to the two classic dilemmas: (1) how to advance equality without
sacrificing quality? (2) How to regulate the private sector without curbing its creativity and initiative?
9. Too much power vested in a single regulatory institution like AICTE for policymaking, licensing, funding,
curriculum design etc. There is a need to disintegrate to perform specific key functions. More colleges should be
made autonomous to encourage creative experiments and to impart greater responsibility to teachers.
Postgraduate education must then be limited to university departments and autonomous colleges that have
teachers with Ph.D. degrees. Student evaluation of teachers must be an integral part of higher education. The
UGC should take the initiative in this regard, starting with the Central universities, which are its special
responsibilities.
10. Urgent steps must be taken to enhance the perceived status and consequent low morale of conventional B.Sc.
and B.A. students in the country. A large number of these talented students feel ‗left out‘ by the system and pursue
their degrees without any enthusiasm. The outsourcing boom in India is shifting to a large number of other
knowledge areas including arts, design, accounting law etc. These areas require skills outside of engineering,
where traditionally all ―prestige‖ jobs have been held. By working with the private sector to create opportunities
for the other students and improving their curriculum to make it challenging (rather than mere rote learning), the
best students can distinguish themselves meaningfully to obtain such better jobs. State educators need to rethink
the curriculum and delivery approaches for the BA and B.Sc. courses. Offering specialized elective courses based
on students‘ interests and local employment opportunities will definitely help them differentiate themselves in
the job market.
11. The government can explore new delivery models to increase capacity such as public private partnerships,
decentralized delivery, distance learning and computerized vocational training. E- Learning resources are
increasingly used worldwide for skill-up gradation of employed people. Most Indian Universities make little use of
internet in improving administrative/academic efficiency. In India, e-learning can not only improve access to
education but can also help teachers update themselves. Since on-line education, is heavily dependent on reliable
high-speed internet coverage, there is an urgent need to connect more and more cities in India have high-speed
cyber-network. At the same time, the government must introduce certain minimum standards as a measure of
quality and ensure that all public and private institutions adhere to these.
12. Professional education should purely be looked upon as ‗private consumption‘ just like a car or a house rather
than as a ‗public good‘. There is no way one can create excellent infrastructural facilities or hire globally
acclaimed faculty members if the institution is resource-starved. A robust system of education will require
significant increase in tuition and other fees. However, to ensure meritorious students from financially weaker
backgrounds do not suffer for want of funding, provisions for fellowships/soft bank loans must be designed.
13. Attracting and retaining bright, young, deserving faculty members is a key requirement for quality delivery
of education. Professors from leading US universities get billions of dollars as grants from government
institutions. The Indian government has to realize the importance of funding research. If the same level of funding
is available to existing IISc, IITs, or AIIMs, we can sure make an equal impact and reduce the brain drain. Young
bright Ph.Ds. should be given faculty positions with adequate ―start-up‖ grants to enable them to start
productive teaching/research career early. China is also trying to reverse brain drain by attracting top
researchers, Nobel Prize winning physicists and economists back to its universities by giving them infrastructural
facilities and needed for their research. Under a project called ‗985 project‘, they provided about 125 million USD
to each of the ten leading Chinese universities to attract outstanding researchers and build cutting-edge research
centers. In 2004, this project was extended to 30 universities and its results are now clearly visible.
14. Investment in faculty training be it emerging technology, training in recent laboratory methods, latest pedagogy
is an extremely important area that must be addressed. UGC, DST and DBT, while designing their training
programs, should give college teachers from remote areas of India special attention.
15. India‘s present growth is led by service sector especially ICT revolution. As India moves up the value chain,
we need greater R&D investment and ‗knowledge workers‘ as opposed to ‗manual workers‘. This needs sincere
policy commitment on the part of the government for which it is important that all ministries such as Education,
Commerce, IT, Communications, Health, Science & Technology, Finance work with each other in close
coordination.

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Tamanna Joshi et. al., Journal of Management Research and Analysis (JMRA)
Available online at http://jmraonline.com
ISSN: 2394-2770, Impact Factor: 4.878, Volume 05 Issue 03, September 2018, Pages: 142-150

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