HIGHER EDUCATION IN RELATION TO SKILL DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM IN INDIA: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

The accelerated economic growth has increased the demand for skilled manpower that has highlighted the shortage of skilled manpower in the country. Employees worldwide state a variety of reasons for their inability to fill jobs, ranging from undesirable geographic locations to candidates looking for more pay than what the employers have been offering. India is among the top countries in which employers are facing difficulty in filling up the jobs. For India, the difficulty to fill up the jobs is 48%, which is above the global standard of 34% in 2012. The lack of available applicants, shortage of hard skills and shortage of suitable employability, including soft skills, are some of the key reasons in finding a suitable candidate for available jobs in the country.Strengthening India’s education and skills system is essential to boost inclusive growth and take India to a higher phase of economic development. India’s Five-Year Plan (2012-17) aims to raise the overall literacy rate to over 80% and reduce the gender gap to less than 10%. The 2013-14 budget focuses on the poor, with the goal of creating opportunities for young people to acquire the education and skills needed for decent employment. But expanding access to education needs to be matched by determined efforts to raise quality and relevance. Recent improvements in educational attainment and deeper integration into global value chains have often not been sufficient to ensure the competitiveness of the labour force, as shown by the lower quality of education.