NEP2020 – Bridging the skill gap and empowering our youth for a promising future – Times of India

By Anish Srikrishna, CEO, Times Professional Learning

As a worrying skill gap impacts the employability in every sector, we need to rethink the training and development of our workforce. The National Education Policy 2020, with its focus on skill development, will hold the key to restructuring the educational ecosystem so as to improve the employability of future generations.

How will the National Education Policy Help Boost Employability?

The technological advances of the last few decades have transformed every aspect of the working landscape, leading to big changes in skill expectations from employers. In the context of this rapidly evolving work culture, the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 will be a key factor in the overall effort to equip our manpower to lead the change. This revolutionary policy has set the framework for deep educational reform, particularly in Higher Education, with emphasis on developing technical as well as soft skills among graduates and post-graduate students.

In fact, employability is one of the focuses of NEP 2020, which recognizes the role of education in providing students with the right skillsets. It is also in line with the policy’s goal of meeting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” by 2030. The policy recognizes the importance of overhauling the educational system in order to meet this goal.

Addressing skill challenges

This recalibration of the educational ecosystem becomes imperative when we consider the worrying skill gap that is affecting employability in every sector. The National Council for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (NCSDE), citing data from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), predicts a skill deficit of 29 million by 2030. This gap has already made an impact, with 53% of Indian businesses reportedly unable to hire suitable candidates because of their lack of future skills.

Significantly, this skill gap exists across different sectors, from IT/ITES to manufacturing, pharma, and infrastructure. It has very real economic cost, as revealed by an Accenture report that predicts a USD 1.97 trillion loss in the country’s GDP growth over the next 10 years. The NCSDE points to our inadequate education system as the main reason behind this skill gap. Interestingly, it also indicts companies for failing to ensure in-job training.

Breaking from the traditional path

It is against this backdrop that we must assess the important role that NEP 2020 can play in reversing the course. Following are some of the key initiatives that can help in increasing employability of the emerging workforce:

Holistic learning: Instead of the traditional content-heavy and rote-learning approach, the NEP lays emphasis on a more holistic view. It calls for a creative and multidisciplinary curriculum that includes humanities, sports and fitness, languages, culture, arts and crafts, in addition to science and mathematics. It recognizes soft skills such as communication, cooperation, teamwork and resilience, as ‘life skills’. This altered approach is designed to help students develop academic expertise with vital leadership skills that can help them in their career path.

Multi-disciplinary approach: Here, NEP 2020 breaks the mould of categorizing subject choices under the traditional buckets of science, commerce, and humanities, allowing a more cross-sectional selection of courses. It indicates a shift towards competence-based learning that helps students to further improve their core skills, instead of following a rigid course selection process.

Stress on vocational education: Perhaps, the most significant component of NEP 2020 in encouraging employment is the inclusion of vocational education and training. This ensures that the entire ecosystem of schools, colleges, and universities will now include vocational education as part of their curriculum. This can potentially add more than 280,000 schools and over 40,000 higher education institutions in dispensing vocational training.

With the advent of Industry 4.0, hiring managers are now increasingly looking for people who can combine sector expertise with digital competence and industry-based skills. NEP 2020 is a vital step towards restructuring the educational ecosystem with the aim of meeting the rapidly changing needs of employers. Professional learning institutions can play a vital role in facilitating academic learning, through their industry-based curriculum and mentoring. With the inclusion of professional reskilling and upskilling, these institutions also rope in Corporate India as an important stakeholder in ensuring in-job training.