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waiting for the Right break The queue at a job fair

It is not just about your technical and academic skills. The way you talk and walk, your confidence, inter-personal skills, communication skills and leadership qualities matter too. You could be an engineering graduate or a post graduate in computer applications, but your soft skills speak volumes about your personality.

There are plenty of jobs to be lapped up. But, the problem with Indian youth is they are unemployable, says the Indian Labour Report 2007, released by Team Lease Services.

The study commissioned by the human resource and staffing agency, says, youth unemployability is a bigger crisis than unemployment.

Fifty three per cent of employed Indian youth suffer from some degree of skill deprivation, while 57 per cent suffer from some degree of unemployability. And the money required to repair this skill deficit is a whopping Rs. 4,90,000 crores over two years.

Ninety per cent of employment opportunities require vocational skills, but 90 per cent of our college/school education is bookish. And, this ‘poor’ quality of skills shows up as low incomes rather than unemployment.

“The problem is the huge demand-supply mismatch,” says Manish Sabharwal, chairman of Team Lease Services.

In the IT sector, a slew of finishing schools have come up across various cities to offer some kind of a pre-employment preparation and fill the gap.

“We try and address the issue from the industry perspective and train the graduates so that they can be directly deployed on projects,” says S.V.Venkatesh, founder and chairman of Raman International Institute of Information Technology (RiiiT), Mysore, the IT finishing school which has a target to train 5,000 students a year.

The post-graduate diploma training takes the graduates through analytical skills (the key skill required for any industry), communication skills, soft-skills (group discussion, leading and interacting with a team) and technical skills required by prospective employers.

“Along with analytical and logical reasoning, parallel training is given on language and communication and soft skills,” he adds. The students also learn yoga, laughter therapy, pranayama, and stress management as part of life skills training.

Why the mismatch between demand and supply? “Because the industry is volatile, especially IT,” says Sajeev Nair, CEO of Mind Parlour Learning Systems, a Dubai-based corporate training outfit, which is setting up its first IT finishing school in Kochi. “In IT, languages that were introduced two years back are obsolete now. Now, there is a boom in Dot Net technology and other new programs. For universities and engineering colleges, it is difficult to bring in changes in curriculum overnight in tune with industry developments,” he adds.

Mind Parlour will set up schools in Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai in the next few months. “At the end of the first year, 300 ready-to-employed graduates will come out of the Kochi school and we have a target to train 20,000 students by 2010,” he adds. The graduates will get Nasscom-authorised certificates after a four-month course. “Our focus is on ‘employability factor’ which is a combination of specific technical skills, HR skills and behavioural skills. In software industry, it is imperative to have good cross-cultural communication skills, leadership skills, presentation skills and team dynamics. And, our academic education does not meet those demands,” Sajeev explains.

The labour report states that what is required is a structural change. This could make up for the failure in imparting quality education and skills. This could also set right lack of technical and vocational training and policy blunders (labour laws that sabotage ‘learning while earning’ and ‘learning by doing’).

The solution is a skill repair agenda, which should begin at schools. “Else, the ‘repair pipeline’ initiated at the college level will run dry,” Manish adds.

The finishing schools agree. A drastic change in the education system is important to address the issue. “The manpower requirement is huge. And, they need freshers who can perform on the job and this can happen only if our education system addresses the critical components along with education. Finishing schools are just a stop-gap arrangement,” Venkatesh adds.

Youngsters should identify their core strengths and work towards them. “If your passion is fashion designing, align your core competency with it. Self drive is a critical factor for success,” he says.

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