Resolve the paradox of jobless graduates amid a skills scarcity

Ensuring that India's youth are productively employed is a challenge that calls for radical reforms

- AJIT RANADE

India's gross enrolment ratio (GER) in higher education is at 28.3%, up by five percentage points in the past 10 years. This represents the proportion of those between the ages of 18 and 23 enrolled for college or higher-level courses. The National Education Policy aims to increase this ratio to 50% in the next decade. That would imply a faster rate of increasing college and university attendance than has been achieved in the past decade. At present, roughly 11 million young people are graduating annually with a degree or diploma of some kind. The problem of getting more youth enrolled is not merely constrained by the lack of seats in colleges.

For instance, in the recent July frenzy for admissions to junior colleges across the state of Maharashtra, it was revealed that there were 300 colleges, fully funded by the state, that received zero applicants. These colleges receive grants for staff and faculty salaries but have no students. There is suspicion that this state of affairs has been going on for quite some time. It was shocking enough for the Bombay High Court to take suo moto cognizance and initiate legal proceedings.