The majority of the 60 lakh graduates that the country produces every year go jobless. Only four lakh of them find jobs, leaving the rest, mostly with general degrees, wondering what to do after that.

But what if these people could equip themselves with employable skills — for instance, a history graduate getting certification in cyber security or big data that can help him or her secure a good job?

To make such a situation become real, a ₹20,000-crore project is under the works. Awaiting Cabinet nod, the project seeks to introduce an employable skill as part of graduation courses.

The University Grants Commission (UGC), All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), State governments and stakeholders such as Nasscom will be roped in to roll out this programme across the country.

“We have prepared an approach paper. We are awaiting approval by the Cabinet. It might take a few months,” said Vedula LVSS Subba Rao, Senior Economic Advisory in the Union Ministry of Human Resources Development.

Addressing a Nasscom conference on future skills here on Wednesday, he said there was a huge disconnect between the requirements of industry and the state of education. “While industry and trade have witnessed linear and multi-dimensional growth, the education sector has failed to keep pace. We need to address this major national issue,” he said.

Talking about the small experiments happening in logistics, retail, media and entertainment sectors, he said courses have been introduced in some institutes to equip students with job-ready skills.

Subba Rao said the idea is to offer ‘future skills’ as optional courses, as part-time courses and full-fledged degree courses in a phased manner so that general degree students would have the opportunity to take up skill courses along with their degrees. About 15 institutions, mostly in Tamil Nadu, have already taken the cue andw have started offering them. “We are targeting introducing courses like these in over 5,000 institutes in the next one-two years,” he said.Representatives from over 100 educational institutions from different States attended the ‘Higher Education Summit – Get EQUIP..ed’ for the Future’ organised by the IT-ITeS Sector Skills Council at Nasscom (SSC Nasscom).

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