Students are educated but not industry ready: Study 

On the occasion of Teacher’s Day, teacher community has collectively voiced their opinion on the employability quotient of the students and gave critical recommendations for the formulation of New Education Policy to enable education for employment through the Pearson Voice Teacher Survey 2015. The survey carries significant insights and possible solutions from teachers that can aid the government’s deliberations on themes such as employability, industry collaborations and integration of ICT in the framework of New Education Policy. With teachers considering 57 per cent of the students to be educated but not adequately prepared for employment, the survey respondents strongly called for increased industry academia collaboration, particularly for course restructuring (75 per cent), to help boost employability. Interestingly, the teaching community (44 per cent) expressed the need for industry training of teachers in addition to merit-based industry internships (48 per cent) for students. Deepak Mehrotra, Managing Director, Pearson India, said, “Being the world’s largest learning organisation, Pearson has taken an initiative to engage with the teachers to bring-out the topical issues facing Indian education sector and suggest measures to transform the learning landscape in the country. We are glad that the platform is gaining relevance among the teaching community and this is evident from the growing participation of teachers every year. Government has shown intent to build greater industry-academia partnership by proposing a consultative theme in the National Education Policy framework. We are glad that the teachers have not only collectively validated this idea of industry-academia collaboration but offered a specific solution of curriculum restructuring.” For integration of ICT in the education system, teachers across India recommend provision of computer and internet connectivity across institutions (66 per cent) and installation of smart boards (62 per cent) as key requirements. However, teachers consider high cost of technology installation (38 per cent) and lack of infrastructure & maintenance (23 per cent) as the biggest challenges for technology adoption at educational institutions. The findings showed in teachers’ belief (60 per cent) that India’s education system is providing comprehensive and holistic education (subject knowledge along with social, creative, physical and ethical) to learners. However, teachers at higher-education level are less convinced with the existing system’s ability to provide holistic education (51 per cent) vis-à-vis counterparts at school level (72 per cent). To facilitate transition from ‘subject-based learning’ to ‘holistic learning’, teachers across India ranked appropriate continuous assessments of students’ performance (47 per cent), better integration of technology & digital content into teaching methodology (44 per cent) and linkage between concepts across subjects/discipline (43 per cent) as the most effective ways.