The Indian Education system is producing a large number of graduates that are unemployable. They lack basic communication and problem solving skills that are needed for even the most elementary jobs. The problem is not infrastructure or money. Indians are willing to invest in education and this investment is more than sufficient to create infrastructure for most Bachelor or Masters level courses. Except in very few technical fields such as medicine, fees paid by students are sufficient to provide good quality education. But clearly this is not what is happening. The problem is that a vast majority of Indian colleges lack the focus to create employable graduates. Their task, as colleges see it, is to help students go through a curriculum and pass an exam. After that, the student is on his own.To change the way we treat education, we need to change this focus. Institutions that are involved in education must consider gainful and appropriate employment as the primary goal of their courses. This is especially true of courses in Technology and Business Administration, where colleges need to have strong and continuous interaction with companies that will employ their graduates, to understand what they require from their employees. Colleges must then make sure that their graduates have those skills. In todays world, even a brilliant technologist will struggle if he is not proficient in English. A talented animator is no use if he cannot understand instructions. This is the way it is, take it or leave it. Most Indian colleges do not focus on employability and therefore are of no use to their students.Building this focus requires three things: additional training, industry stints and real life exposure. We at NHSMT provide just these three things.The current curriculum in India is out of date. It has great content from thirty years ago and does not take into account the fact that the world has moved on. Educational institutions have a choice they can stick to the old curriculum, or fight a long and probably futile battle trying to change it. We at NHSMT believe that the most urgent need is to supplement the curriculum with additional training in new technologies such as online advertising, cloud computing and mobile apps development. We provide Earn while you Learn options with our industry partners that helps reduce students financial burden of education and at the same time enables them to gain precious industry exposure.Changes will come to education in India, but they will take time. You, as a student, do not have the luxury to wait for education to catch up with the real world. Take your future in your hands and invest in skills that enhance your employability.Ways to Improve Indias Economy in the Next ten yearsWith real GDP growth down at 5.3%, the Indian economy is in poor shape. The Government has kept to its tired refrain that 5.3% is still one of the fastest growth rates in the world. But that is not relevant, because Indian per capita GDP is amongst the lowest in the world, and we have no excuse for not growing at anything but the fastest rate in the world.India can regain economic growth and grow spectacularly in the next decade because its problems are largely self created and can be solved without extremely painful adjustments. There is no dearth of savings, and we are blessed with a resilient banking system that is still posting good credit growth. The problem is in utilizing capital for delivering growth. It is here that we hit bottlenecks.The first is lack of policy direction and transparency in core sectors. Mining, Refining, Power, Roads and Railways are the backbone of any economy. Without growth in these sectors we can expect power shortages, inflation, lack of scale and therefore total inability to grow industries downstream. In simple terms there can be no malls without power plants and there can be no power plants without coal mining. More transparent policy necessarily means less political and bureaucratic power. To a great extent our economic growth will depend on whether people punish those political parties that do not deliver economic growth, but depend on patronage to retain power. Only then will the policies change.The second is a lack of leadership and trust in the political process to deliver social change. Our people are not willing to allow mining in their districts. People are not willing to part with their land. People are not willing to have nuclear power in their vicinity. And people are not willing to let rivers be utilized for hydropower. Beneath all this unwillingness is a complete lack of faith in our administrative apparatus. People will not part with land because they fear that they will never be compensated. Their fears have a solid basis in experience. It is the main responsibility of the political class in the next ten years to convince people to make the change from agriculture to other employment.The third is lack of education and training. A modern economy depends totally on the quality of its workmanship. Whether it is retail, BPO, Financial Services or health care, the ability to grow depends on the quality of customer experience at the ground level. This quality depends on education and training. We are fortunate to have a large young population, but that is not enough to sustain growth. We need to provide quality training to this population and set up a virtuous cycle good training leading to fulfilling employment and a prosperous life. Vague concepts of learning and intellectual emancipation need to give way to a practical focus on employability and relevance.If we can get these three things right: right policy, right politics and right training, nothing can stop India growing.Holding on to Indias Lead in IT, Software and ITESIndian IT and ITES firms like Infosys, TCS, Cognizant and HCL have done extremely well in the last decade. From being upstarts doing subcontracted work on the Y2K bug, they have evolved to become global scale corporations that challenge the best in the world.But there is a catch. Like the years 1998-2000, when a great technology boom and bullish markets spurred investments into network infrastructure and online businesses, this time, a new technology boom based on Mobile applications, Social Networks, Cloud computing and Online advertising is changing the world again. A large part of the skills currently deployed in Indias large IT firms will be rendered obsolete as a result of this new technological revolution. Many of the jobs currently performed at India will no longer be relevant in the next few years.Holding Indias lead in IT and Software will require a concerted effort to develop expertise in the focus areas of our MBA Pro courses: Cloud Computing, Mobile App Development and Online Advertising. Indias edge in IT and ITES is in the hands of its private sector. Given the track record of Indian IT firms as emerging innovators and rapid adapters, we have no doubt that our companies will change their workforce through hiring, reassignment and training so that they have the right mix of employees that can address what their customers want. This is a fabulous opportunity for NHSMT students to pick an area of specialization along with their MBA so that they are future ready with the skills necessary for anyone who wishes to have a long and fruitful career in Indian IT.The Indian Education system is producing a large number of graduates that are unemployable. They lack basic communication and problem solving skills that are needed for even the most elementary jobs. The problem is not infrastructure or money. Indians are willing to invest in education and this investment is more than sufficient to create infrastructure for most Bachelor or Masters level courses. Except in very few technical fields such as medicine, fees paid by students are sufficient to provide good quality education. But clearly this is not what is happening. The problem is that a vast majority of Indian colleges lack the focus to create employable graduates. Their task, as colleges see it, is to help students go through a curriculum and pass an exam. After that, the student is on his own.To change the way we treat education, we need to change this focus. Institutions that are involved in education must consider gainful and appropriate employment as the primary goal of their courses. This is especially true of courses in Technology and Business Administration, where colleges need to have strong and continuous interaction with companies that will employ their graduates, to understand what they require from their employees. Colleges must then make sure that their graduates have those skills. In todays world, even a brilliant technologist will struggle if he is not proficient in English. A talented animator is no use if he cannot understand instructions. This is the way it is, take it or leave it. Most Indian colleges do not focus on employability and therefore are of no use to their students.Building this focus requires three things: additional training, industry stints and real life exposure. We at NHSMT provide just these three things.The current curriculum in India is out of date. It has great content from thirty years ago and does not take into account the fact that the world has moved on. Educational institutions have a choice they can stick to the old curriculum, or fight a long and probably futile battle trying to change it. We at NHSMT believe that the most urgent need is to supplement the curriculum with additional training in new technologies such as online advertising, cloud computing and mobile apps development. We provide Earn while you Learn options with our industry partners that helps reduce students financial burden of education and at the same time enables them to gain precious industry exposure.Changes will come to education in India, but they will take time. You, as a student, do not have the luxury to wait for education to catch up with the real world. Take your future in your hands and invest in skills that enhance your employability.Ways to Improve Indias Economy in the Next ten yearsWith real GDP growth down at 5.3%, the Indian economy is in poor shape. The Government has kept to its tired refrain that 5.3% is still one of the fastest growth rates in the world. But that is not relevant, because Indian per capita GDP is amongst the lowest in the world, and we have no excuse for not growing at anything but the fastest rate in the world.India can regain economic growth and grow spectacularly in the next decade because its problems are largely self created and can be solved without extremely painful adjustments. There is no dearth of savings, and we are blessed with a resilient banking system that is still posting good credit growth. The problem is in utilizing capital for delivering growth. It is here that we hit bottlenecks.The first is lack of policy direction and transparency in core sectors. Mining, Refining, Power, Roads and Railways are the backbone of any economy. Without growth in these sectors we can expect power shortages, inflation, lack of scale and therefore total inability to grow industries downstream. In simple terms there can be no malls without power plants and there can be no power plants without coal mining. More transparent policy necessarily means less political and bureaucratic power. To a great extent our economic growth will depend on whether people punish those political parties that do not deliver economic growth, but depend on patronage to retain power. Only then will the policies change.The second is a lack of leadership and trust in the political process to deliver social change. Our people are not willing to allow mining in their districts. People are not willing to part with their land. People are not willing to have nuclear power in their vicinity. And people are not willing to let rivers be utilized for hydropower. Beneath all this unwillingness is a complete lack of faith in our administrative apparatus. People will not part with land because they fear that they will never be compensated. Their fears have a solid basis in experience. It is the main responsibility of the political class in the next ten years to convince people to make the change from agriculture to other employment.The third is lack of education and training. A modern economy depends totally on the quality of its workmanship. Whether it is retail, BPO, Financial Services or health care, the ability to grow depends on the quality of customer experience at the ground level. This quality depends on education and training. We are fortunate to have a large young population, but that is not enough to sustain growth. We need to provide quality training to this population and set up a virtuous cycle good training leading to fulfilling employment and a prosperous life. Vague concepts of learning and intellectual emancipation need to give way to a practical focus on employability and relevance.If we can get these three things right: right policy, right politics and right training, nothing can stop India growing.Holding on to Indias Lead in IT, Software and ITESIndian IT and ITES firms like Infosys, TCS, Cognizant and HCL have done extremely well in the last decade. From being upstarts doing subcontracted work on the Y2K bug, they have evolved to become global scale corporations that challenge the best in the world.But there is a catch. Like the years 1998-2000, when a great technology boom and bullish markets spurred investments into network infrastructure and online businesses, this time, a new technology boom based on Mobile applications, Social Networks, Cloud computing and Online advertising is changing the world again. A large part of the skills currently deployed in Indias large IT firms will be rendered obsolete as a result of this new technological revolution. Many of the jobs currently performed at India will no longer be relevant in the next few years.Holding Indias lead in IT and Software will require a concerted effort to develop expertise in the focus areas of our MBA Pro courses: Cloud Computing, Mobile App Development and Online Advertising. Indias edge in IT and ITES is in the hands of its private sector. Given the track record of Indian IT firms as emerging innovators and rapid adapters, we have no doubt that our companies will change their workforce through hiring, reassignment and training so that they have the right mix of employees that can address what their customers want. This is a fabulous opportunity for NHSMT students to pick an area of specialization along with their MBA so that they are future ready with the skills necessary for anyone who wishes to have a long and fruitful career in Indian IT.

Indian Education industry is a $90bn opportunity; Governments outlay is the 3rd largest on education after US and China. We have more than 2 lac recognized middle and senior basic schools and more than 6,50,000 primary and junior basic schools in India. The allocation per child has increased from ~$390 in 2010 to ~ $800(213%) in 12. This is an impressive scale indeed and if we dont go beyond, this would make India one of the most successful school ecosystems. Perhaps, there is a merit in going beyond scale and asking the not so often asked question about quality. So, how do we stand in terms of the quality of school education?Lets look at quality standards with PISA as a point of reference. (PISA) Project for International student assessment is an international comparative survey of 15 year-olds (46,000 learners) knowledge and skills across reading, mathematical and science literacy. India was represented by the states of Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh. The recently unveiled PISA report spread over 74 countries including the Plus nations (10 countries were added to the original 64), the two Indian states (Tamil Nadu & Himachal Pradesh) came up 72nd and 73rd out of 74 in both reading and Math. In short, India faired miserably across the three areas.Well, it looks completely different, this school ecosystem, when it comes to the quality of education. To be fair to the schools and academic leaders across the nation, they understand this and are constantly on a lookout to improve this equation. Southern India especially has been open to trying several education solutions across the grades from III to VIII. Its a sorry state, as not much of it has changed the learning outcomes. Learnmile is on the same mission, that to change this equation across teaching, learning. Here are some of the links which we find missing in the current day Education solutions.1. Do we really understand the problem?The amount of effort, energy we spend on understanding the need gap, root cause and core issues is far from desirable, from all quarters, be it the academia or the government. If the solutions are re-packaged with the same assumptions, how then, will they bring in any change? Doing same things again and again wont change the outcome. There perhaps lies the big question in diagnosis of the problem, rather than trying to put answers to the wrong question. We need to constantly figure out the right question and ask ourselves before we try and fit a school solution in desperation to improving outcomes, What am I trying to improve? What is the problem?2. Teacher is the problem?The easiest way out to answering this tough question on quality is to put the blame on to the teacher. If this were to be the crucial cause, we would have long solved the quality conundrum in higher education in India. Teachers are at best a true reflection of our ecosystems standards. I have noticed that it has become a generalized statement, anyone can make, that the teacher is at fault or the teacher is not good enough. Generalization has hardly led to effective solutions.3. Teaching v/s LearningSchool solutions today are being made with an idea to either substitute a teacher or that to reduce the teachers role down while teaching and learning. This approach hasnt led to improvement in learning. Theres no study or empirical data, of improvement in learning outcomes with any such education solution, including a digital board. Most of the current solutions suffer with the myopic vision of improving teaching. I would like to question the basic premise and ask, How about solutions focused on improving thinking and learning among children. PISA09 results point to the fact that Indian students are one of the weakest in integrating and interpreting. Indian students scored 348 and 325 in Math against the OECD counties average score of 496.4. Content v/s HardwarePerhaps, its time that we asked the question, Is it the box or what is inside the box which is the key to improving quality of learning? The fad seems to be with the box right now. Most of the current day solutions have been made keeping in mind the entertainment factor for the learner. More than 30,000 schools in India have a digital classroom now. Does that ensure thinking and learning among students? There is an urgent need for meaningful, engaging, curiosity evoking, application-oriented and stimulating content. Its perhaps for this very reason, that the government, MHRD has openly acknowledged and invited private players to come forward with superior content. To me, this shift from the hardware to the content is no more a question of choice. Its inevitable!5. Parents expectationsMHRD took a brave step with a change in the assessment framework across CBSE schools with CCE. The idea seemed right, that to change the goal to change the practices. Parents though havent warmed up to it much. The schools, which take the brave step of focusing on learning rather than memorization, are often met with a strong parental resistance. Parents perhaps need to ask the important question, Do I want to encourage my child to think and to innovate or push on testing her memory and speed. The current set of education solutions may miss more than they match. One way to look at it is to say that its on a natural evolution towards getting better, hopefully with a focus on improving thinking skills and learning. Heres something from my twitter handle, to sum up my thoughts.The key divide between knowledge & learning is the ability to think and apply. Innovation in education then hinges on "to do new", to encourage thinking among young learners.

Rote learningYes, we do know that many IB schools across India are trying to bring in interactive education and we laud that immensely. But the evil ofrote learningis yet to be wiped out from a majority of Indian schools. Owing to the fixated style of question papers that have been doing the rounds in board exams from time immemorial, rote learning has continued.Were very sure that most students wont be clear about many of the basic foundation concepts taught in school even after theyve graduated.Ever heard of students mugging up balanced equations?This is one fundamental change that needs to come about in our Indian Education System!Marking SystemAll the other evils of the Indian education system ultimately come down to the method in which students are marked.Is it justified that a student is evaluated only on the basis of his/her performance for the duration of three hours of the exam? If the axis of grading and marking is shifted to classroom participation, project work, communication and leadership skills and extracurricular performance, only then will a genuine student shine out.This might sound like a utopian proposition but the Indian education system badly needs to bring about this change.Respect for all streamsOh has she done a MA in English? Shell end up becoming a teacherWhat good is a diploma in hospitality management? It ultimately means doing a job in a hotel as a cook right?If youve heard these lines time and again from you elders, dont you think its time you stop them?How long are we going to look down upon vocational streams and look up to medicine,engineering, theIITs and the IIMs? Students at the school level need to be educated through career counseling regarding the kind of streams that exist and what importance each of them plays to make an economy diverse.Variety in education streamsWhy do we always see students being envious of their counterparts in the USA?Its because there are just three options that student have after Class 10 theyre stuck with Science, Arts or Commerce. If theyre not good enough for either of these, they jet set straight into diplomas and certificate courses. Dont you think the Indian education system needs to introduce combination courses in which students can opt for a major and a minor subject? If students in America can pursue Physiotherapy with Art History and Biological Science with Photography,why not in India?The system of tuition classesCommenting on this subject is like plunging ones hand into a vicious cycle which seems to have no beginning or end. Reasons for tuition classes mushrooming are because students say that the teaching in schools is lax and not good enough for them to clear exams. Whereas teachers say that students jump ahead many chapters in the tuition classes before they are even taught in school.This makes them loose all motivation and steam to attend school in the first place. Forget all of this, what about the poor parent whoshard earned money gets drained in schooland tuition fees alone?Although the picture does seem dismal, there is hope because some of these changes are slowly being made by select education providers. But how quickly will these changes percolate down to common man in India, only time will tell.

A quick internet search for the terms problems with Indian Education system will point you to numerous articles addressing the issue. It is one of the most talked about topics whether one is facing a Job Interview, partaking in a debate, at family gatherings and almost every time one wants to have an intellectual conversation on high spirits. Below are 6 reasons, in my opinion, why our higher education system fails.1. Too much time spent on assessing the problems, rather than finding tangible solutionsLets look at the service and solution providers as an example. Attend any educational conference frequented by them and its like listening to a broken record player. You have hour long speeches, expert panel discussions and solutions from experts in the industry. And these solutions are more or less the same Attitude needs to change, We need to get back to the basics, Funding needs to increase, Structural and design changes, Awareness needs to increase and my personal favorite, we need more data and analysis.

All good points no doubt, but these conferences are mostly for networking purposes where individuals want to establish themselves as thought leaders in order to impress the right people and move up in their careers. In the end the sponsors get their 2 second vote of thanks, visiting cards are exchanged and everybody leaves with some souvenirs to carry home.(Recently met an educator who proudly stated I dont care about paying the entry fee, It is worth the money with the kind of people you meet, while waving the Oscar-award styled memento from the conference at my face.)2.Miss match in supply and demandIndias GER is lingering around 19 percent at the moment, 6 % below the world average and at least 50 % lesser than countries such as Australia and the United States of America. GER stands for gross enrollment rate, or the percentage of students enrolling into higher education institutes each year post high school. The government apparently has a vision to increase this to 30 percent by the year 2020.To give that information some context, India has the largest population of teens with close to 100 million in number between 17 to 19. But each year only 19 % students enroll into higher education institutes which translates to 20 million according to a joint survey by aspiring minds and Nasscom in 2013.That leaves a whopping 81 % or 80 million in number who do not have the opportunity to study even if they wanted to. And to think only 3.5 million graduates join the workforce each year among the 20 million, I wonder how many people drop out eventually.There is a massive gap that is created due to the difference in the number of schools and higher education institutes that really needs to be bridged. There is either a lack of seats to accommodate the rest or seats are available in colleges nobody has heard of.3. Mushrooming of low quality, money making Institutes.As a result of that huge gap, people who have no reason to be in the field of education want to capitalize on the shortage of supply. Its no secret that the education industry has long lost its noble cause and is more of a business. Politicians, realtors, businessmen/women - basically anybody who wants to mint some serious cash, start to open colleges. (Probably already own half the colleges in the country)Take Bangalore for example, by the time you travel from one part to the other, you will notice colleges at every nook and corner, housed in what probably looks like a 3 storied apartment complex. Its hard to even imagine quality infrastructure and facilities inside these colleges. And a glimpse of the teaching staff shows you how poor they are in quality (that topic deserves its own separate article, unfortunately). This farce exists not only in a large city like Bangalore, but in smaller areas as well.We recently traveled across most of Karnataka as a part of our awareness and marketing campaign, and were overwhelmed with the number of colleges that were present in the smallest of towns. While some were headed by passionate people with a clear vision, most were obsessing over donations and admissions. (Its like hunting season for them around this time of the year).And if you interact with the management of the latter type colleges, you can see they have zero intentions of churning out quality graduates. The moment we revealed to them that we did not have siblings who wanted to enroll in their "prestigious" institutions, and that we were in fact there to boost students awareness and empowerment, we got shooed away in a hurry.4.Indias obsession with the service industry.The buzzword globalization has been around for quite some time now, and it caused one of the most important changes in our countrys Economy. India inc saw a gradual shift from being a manufacturing hub to a service provider. This was fueled mainly by the boom in I.T and B.P.O industries, and has had a large role to play in the way our education system has been modeled the past decade or more.

Along with the I.T and B.P.O industries, education institutes started seeing themselves as service providers, rather than being a place where the youngsters were molded into innovators and architects of the future. The service they provided was that of certifying graduates as employable by the service industry. For 3 to 4 years, students stuff their minds with information which they would probably never use, because each of these I.T and B.P.O companies have their own training programs which have no relation to a students field of study.Colleges proudly put up banners and hoardings of the 50 different companies that hired their students. These accomplishments act as some killer marketing material, because why wouldn't you want to study in a college that assures you a job after graduating? It also gives the false notion that the only jobs present belong to the I.T , B.P.O and other service industries, thus forcing youngsters to enroll only in courses that cater to them. And finally, the most terrible effect it has had is that it provides no incentives for these colleges to improve.Campus Placements? Check.System and policies? Check.Admission Numbers? Check.Donations? Double Cheque.Why fix it if it ain't broken, right?5. Ineffective Foreign Education Providers BillIn September of 2013, the government of India passed an executive order to allow the top 400 universities in the world to set up campuses in India and allow them to function independently, without the requirement of Local Partners. This sounded promising and one can see the possibilities when universities such as Duke University and Georgia Tech, both among the top fifty U.S Universities, started to show interest.So why aren't more universities lining up considering their cash reserves and how easy it is to set up a college? (All they need to do is call one of our ministers and ask for guidance). As always fine print seems to spoil the goods. Firstly, they aren't allowed to take surplus profits out of the country, with the compulsion of a 5 $ million buy in and maintenance of escrow accounts. Secondly, they have to deal with getting permissions from the University Grants Commission. Everybody already knows how that can be a problem right people, right amount of money and you may still get the short end of the stick.The foreign education providers Bill can be more effective if stops trying to control and regulate universities and instead be similar to their Singapore and Dubai counterparts - granting quick permissions, infrastructure and subsidies. These countries are quickly emerging as top quality higher education hubs for students from around the world.One can see the parallels between FDI and the foreign education providers bill. A major concern of opening gates to foreign investors was that it would ruin traditional and local industries, while also forcing the shutdown of many small scale industries. If that means death to all the low-quality-cash-generation types of colleges, it can only be good news. Another trade in, more importantly, is students here get access to qualified and world class educators.6. Lack of relevant opportunities and project based learningMost of us in the cities have had the privilege of studying in some of the better institutions. But the way they function is a far cry from their more superior counterparts across the globe, nor are they that much better than their inferior counterparts locally. There is a reason not a single Indian University ranks in the world top 200. Even at top institutes, students are force fed a few kilos of textbooks, spend a relatively short time on hands-on project based learning and are absorbed into fields irrelevant to their subjects.To put things into perspective, engineering graduates have to study about 40 subjects - thats close to 250,000 pages worth of information, spend an average of 6000 hours attending classes out of which only 500 hours are spent interacting in Labs across 4 years, have to write 120 internal assessment papers and 50 main exams, undertake a couple of "projects" which was probably stolen from their seniors and let's not even get into the amount of time and resources spent on travelling and studying. And then after all that effort, most of them get jobs in the I.T service industry which has absolutely nothing to do with what they learnt. Only 15 % are lucky enough to get into relevant industries.Oh and did I forget to mention that 85 % of graduates are considered unemployable due to lack of relevant Industry experience? Where on earth are these students supposed to get Relevant Industry Experience if they are busy eating outdated textbooks instead of some industry relevant training and project based learning?Conclusion:There can be so much said about the tall hill that we as a nation have to climb if we need to step up our education system. Even the problems mentioned above just scratch the surface of all things wrong, and are probably only few of the many reasons, but were enough to make me want to get into the field of education as a career, and that's when I decided to start Invokh with a few friends who shared a similar passion.All of them are presented in a superficial perspective, one really needs to dig deep to understand the complexities. The government alone cant make improvements as much as it is their job. Reforms that are not name sake, heavy involvement from the private sector and more youngsters venturing into the field of education are few of the things that could help alleviate the problem. But we need to start somewhere.