EMPLOYMENT OR EMPLOYABILITY?
-
DR N. H. DESHPANDE
Lead
Consultant
Dnyanapeeth
Academy, Pune
June every year is admission season,
even for post graduate courses. Due to increase in no. of Institutions that
offer these courses, marketing of these Institutes has become most essential to
reach the prospective students. In the process of attracting students for
admission, a no. of tall claims is made, which hardly can be verified. Besides
infrastructure, buildings, and facilities like transport, canteen etc invariably
mention of placements is made. The lucrative word was “100% Placements” which
is now getting replaced by “100% Placement assistance”. As if, the main role
and purpose of teaching institutes has now shifted to offer merely placements
from hardcore teaching and preparing the students for life. Education is for
life but in the journey, most of the Institutes tend to be placement agencies. Unfortunately many students, parents also get
attracted to such Institutes. A friend
of mine in Pune, who runs a group of management institutes, proudly (?) says-
“I run coaching classes. I charge heavy fees from MBA aspirants, coach them for
two years and get companies (at any cost) in my campus, to give them offer
letters.”
What happens to these students, after
say six months, he never bothers. He then is worried about next year’s
admissions.
The trend visible in such newly
passed out and recruited MBAs, is that they get placement from the Institute,
they may or may not join that organization. Keep trying elsewhere for better
offer, keeping this in hand. Or else join, and within couple of months, leave
the job. Many of my students have changed jobs like they change shirts. Every
time a new mail id and a new cell no. I have given up the job of remembering,
who is where. In stead, whenever I meet some one, I ask him/her, “Where are you
currently?”
Why this is happening?
Educational Institutions are
increasingly making attempts to attract industries to their campus and offer
placement opportunities to their “end product”.
But the reality is that the students are hardly employable. Given below
are some facts that emphasize this point;
The National Association of Software
and Services Companies, NASSCOM’-McKinsey Report predicts India will confront a
huge shortage of ‘skilled workers’ in the next decade.
According to a McKinsey study, only
25 per cent of our engineering graduates, 15 per cent of our finance and
accounting professionals and 10 per cent of professionals with any kind of
degrees, in India, are suitable for working in multinational companies.
A recent study conducted by the
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has revealed that Human Resource (HR) is
the biggest challenge faced by India especially at the managerial, production
and marketing levels due to the widening of demand-supply gap.
Here comes the question- What are we
offering to our students- employment or employability?
The focus today unfortunately is on
the former. I can understand, if students naturally aim for immediate
employment. But at least Institutions should focus on larger goal-
employability to prepare students for life.
There is need to realize-
1. Being
employed is totally different than being employable.
2. Employment is temporary while
employability is permanent.
3. Employability is combination of Skills
(What you know) + Knowledge (What you do with what
you know) + Attitude (How you do it facing life)
4. Employability cannot be job specific.
These are skills which cut horizontally across all industries and vertically across all jobs. These skills are no
more merely desired by the employers
today but are required by them.
The Changing World
The employment market is changing fast and is characterized by-
â
Deregulation
â
Communications
â
Growth in disposable income
â
Global Trading
â
Demographic Changes
â
Environmental and Social equations
This has led to shifts in business
strategies. The business is changing from international to global, from competition to collaboration,
from functions to processes, from component thinking to system thinking, from
creating stability to managing frequent changes, from clarity to ambiguity,
from standard products/services to customization, from command and control to
empowerment and trust, and from complacent to enlightened workforce.
Is this being
taught in Indian B-Schools?
Generally, MBA curriculum both
universities affiliated or autonomous aims at achieving the integration of
diverse academic disciplines for creating managers capable of making ethical
and commercially viable decisions for running the show. Hence, the curriculum
of a B-school focuses on diverse functional areas, keeping in mind the fact
that students often join MBA programs from diverse background with little or without
any prior knowledge of those areas. Over and above core courses (mandatory for
all) such as Economics, Quantitative Techniques, Behavioral Sciences etc. to
build the foundation, there are standard
specializations available such as Marketing, Finance, Human Resources etc. as
per individual choice. We talk and dream of building quality
Institutes. What our B-schools are known for now? Have they depicted any
strategic focus or are most of them, if not all, are run-of-the-mill B-schools?
By teaching everything to everyone we are not able to develop a high level of
expertise in any single area.
To remain relevant in a fast changing
world, our B-schools are teaching more so that their students can get quick job
offers. The total no. of courses in a typical two year program goes up to
40-45. Can we then come closer to our international counterparts in terms of
teaching, research and creativity? To add to this, there are assignments and
class tests which develop expertise in cut-copy-pest. I am told, readymade printed project/seminar
reports are available in market these days.
One solution can be, for providing
more time for absorption and creative thinking and maximizing the freedom of
choice, can we consider offering electives? In a way, the number of electives
defines the level of academic competition. These electives need not be
compulsory and universal in nature but can be state/area specific. For ensuring quality, our B-schools should
reduce the teaching of main courses, in stead more electives may be offered to
give a wider variety of choices to students. This is critical in today's
environment since the knowledge revolution is making courses obsolete very fast
and, at the same time, creating scope for many more offerings.
For example, in a state like
Chhattisgarh, such electives can in power and mining sector, steel and cement
sector, Industrial safety and so on. This will certainly enhance employability
of students passing out from the state and also industry needs can be locally
satisfied.
The employability skills need to be
taught in B-schools. The pass outs should clearly know what the Industries are
expecting from them? They should also be crystal clear about their expectations
from the job, they are looking for. Match between the two can lead to
employability.
Once the Foreign University Bill is
passed, many global brands will enter Indian market with reputed international
MBA degree. In this scenario probably the leaders may not face more heat at
least for some years. Some B-schools with good infrastructure can rent their
facilities to foreign institutions and survive. What about others?
