Preamble – Let’s understand

As India moves from being a socialist to becoming a capitalistic economy, the major drive in life for each one of us is to look for financial stability. Likewise, for a student too the choice of particular discipline such as Engineering, Medical, Management, Law, Social Sciences or Humanities depends largely on the job market.

Therefore, when a student chooses a particular field of study, his/her major focus is to secure a job or develop some skill so that after the completion of college education he/she gets a job.

But does it happen? You know that it doesn’t. Why is it so? Why is it that several thousands of graduates and postgraduates – despite having spent a lot of money in securing a degree in Science, Engineering, Management, Law, Social Science, or Humanities are still not able to get a respectable job?

Of these disciplines, the craze for an engineering or management degree is mind-boggling. Dreaming of a fantastic career after engineering and management, scores of students take admission in coaching institutes which fuel their aspirations and charge them hefty fee for entrance exams for getting into prestigious institutes across the country.

Driven by a perception that it is easy to get a job with an engineering or management degree the parents of students invest their hard-earned money, and sometimes even the savings of their entire life, just to see their sons or daughters getting a degree in engineering or management. What however unfolds for them is a rather gloomy tale.

Having spent several years first in coaching and then in procuring a formal degree, students step out of the cozy confines of college campus only to find out that companies do not find them even possessing minimum required technical knowledge or adequate communication skills to fit into the professional world. Since getting first class or distinction has become so easy without having fundamental knowledge of subject that we see students with very good percentage too struggling to answer even the basic questions probing their technical knowledge. Moreover, they struggle not just with the technical knowledge but also with their expression and are unable to put across whatever little they know also.

Consider the following facts to conceptualize the whole picture. So, if we look through the situation, the problem is not that of unemployment, but that of unemployability.

In other words, it is not that we don’t have enough jobs, but rather that we don’t have enough number of knowledgeable, trained, skilled or communicative graduates to secure them. Now the question arises, how do we go about it? First of all, let’s put aside our fascination with just a few career options rested either in engineering or management.

Actually, when we think without any preconceived notions, we come across a multitude of options available for us:-