Where is India’s home bred talent?

There is a growing need and unrelenting cries for a full established education system in India. 95,000 odd Indian students currently study in Australia – if the education based was well set, would we have these students within the Indian education fabric. The Indian system focuses on learning by rote and not a practically established system. Calls for reforms in the sector include opening up primary and secondary education to private investment, easier entry of foreign universities and better monitoring, evaluating and having better ‘quality’ students.

According to Janmejaya Sinha, Managing Director of Boston Consulting Group (BCG) “The talent gap is compromising the growth of companies, big time”. According to a BCG group, there was a 30% rise in IT salaries from 2004-06 because of a war for talent between firms. “It is one of the biggest risk they face”, he says.

More than half of India’s billion plus population is below the age group of 25. But, about 40% of its work force of about 400 million people is illiterate and another 40% comprises of school drop-outs, said BCG in a report. Demand for graduates over next 5 years in likely to be 13.8 million, but the reality is that only 13.2 million students graduating over the same period resulting in a talent shortfall of 600,000 fresh students. Sinha says “More than a million people lacking the ability to participate in the workforce has the makings of a potential demographic disaster. We have an army of potentially unskilled workforce, graduates who are ready to face the work force and a frustrated group of workforce. This will only derail India’s growth in the long run.”

India’s literacy rate is at 61% which is dismal compared to other Bric nations in terms of average number of years in secondary education. Rival China already produces more than 3 times the number of PhDs each year.

Fact is that India is home to one of the world’s oldest universities, but, reality is that only 10% of the 20 million who enrol in the grade each year finish high school. Of course female participation scores poorly in this entire equation.

(Reference: Reuters)

About MapleCode

MapleCode is a results-driven business consulting firm that offers services in People & Change Management, Marketing Solutions & IT. Our offerings include Talent Search, HR Consulting, Learning & Development, Advertising, Branding, Internet Marketing, IT Advisory and e-Enablement.

MapleCode as part of its employment strategy and being an EEO provider and as part of its ‘giving back to soceity’ initiatives, employs and nutures fresh graduates within its workforce. In the inception year (2009), MapleCode strives to employee and invest 60% of its workforce group from the Fresh graduate category including graduates and post graduates. MapleCode’s in-house training division “MapleCode Learning Solutions”, trains its associates in house and on the latest and niche segments to help them grow professionaly and holistically.

Training, we believe, is essential and core to our success and as well as success of our associates.

Regards,

Prashanth Vaidyan

(The contributor is the Director of Business Planning and Human Capital at MapleCode).