Degree. Yes. Employable? Not quite

Time of India

a day ago

Rajesh Kalra is a journalist for almost three decades and has also tried his hands at entrepreneurship in between. Although he has written on several subjects, he has a weakness for IT, telecommunications, sports and developmental issues. He is an avid sportsman, a trained high-altitude mountaineer, a passionate mountain biker and a marathoner. He is on the PM's Olympic Task Force and a member of the All India Council of Sports. His blog, Random Access, will cover issues that take into account these varied interests. Follow @rajeshkalra on Twitter LESS ... MORE
A post by a LinkedIn user, Sanket S, has been doing the rounds, almost going viral: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sanket-s-669b0013_education-fmcg-foodtech-activity-7343491703124688896-e9LE
He recently hired three graduates from top-tier private Indian institutions—specialising in business, food, and hospitality. Each had spent Rs 40–50 lakh on their education.
All three were excellent at making PowerPoint presentations—something even AI can now do. But when it came to core, real-world skills, they fell dramatically short.
The MBA graduate didn't understand P&L or cash flow.
The hotel management graduate had never seen a food processing line.
None of them understood precision fermentation—a core capability in modern food-tech.
Let's not act surprised. This isn't new. This problem has been festering for decades. I had once written a piece where I described India's talent output as 'Educated Unemployables.' That unfortunate phrase continues to define our system.
Degrees, yes. Skills, no.
From schools to engineering colleges to competitive exams, the rot is wide and systemic. What Sanket experienced is just the tip of a very large iceberg.
Degrees ≠ Knowledge
Think back to the IT boom of the 1990s and 2000s. Hundreds of computer training institutes sprang up overnight. Families broke FDs and took loans to enroll their children, hoping they'd become coders and land jobs abroad.
But what did most students actually learnt? Basic computer literacy — Word processors and spreadsheets — while believing they were mastering programming.
Even respected engineering colleges weren't spared. A decade ago, an IT honcho interviewed Computer Science graduates from a prominent REC in North India. None could answer basic questions. One student finally admitted: 'We have no faculty. No real tests. Everyone is promoted at the end of the year.'
Officially, we produce X number of engineers. But what do those numbers even mean? They just add up to the statistics that show this many computer graduates produced by the country. And the rot doesn't start in college. It starts much earlier, in school.
In the name of progressive policy, we decided not to fail any child till Class 8. In practice, this has been disastrous. Students who can't cope with Class 5 content are pushed up to Class 8. When higher-level academic rigour begins, the foundation is too weak. They're set up to fail quietly — or worse, coast through the system without ever knowing what they missed. Of course, then there is the great scam involving several exams for jobs except, perhaps those conducted by the UPSC. The way the system is gamed, is well, systemic.
Even competitive exams — supposedly sacrosanct — have been compromised. The process looks secure:
A sealed question paper packet from a bank locker
Invigilators, videography, independent observers
Surprise checks by flying squads
And yet:
Over 50% of candidates in some centres are impersonators with fake IDs.
Some already know the questions — in the right sequence — before the exam begins.
In extreme cases, teachers dictate answers to paid candidates.
The flying squad? Often tipped off well in advance.
When results come out, the best scores go to those who paid for their place. The sincere, hardworking candidates — the ones who actually deserve it — are shown the door.
How do you fix a system where every layer — policy, teaching, exams, oversight — can be manipulated?
Yes, we can frame bulletproof policies. But unless they're implemented with integrity, we're just papering over deep cracks.
India aspires to be a global leader. But how will that happen if our talent supply chain is fundamentally broken?
Worse still, our youth — the supposed beneficiaries of this system — are being consumed by distractions. TikTok, reels, addictive apps. The ability to focus, reflect, grasp depth? Rapidly vanishing. And yet, society seems eerily comfortable with this decline.
We're not just facing a crisis of education. We're looking at a future where mediocrity wears the mask of merit. Where shortcuts triumph over substance. Where effort is no longer rewarded — and that should scare us all.
We're not staring at a crisis. We're already in it.
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Views expressed above are the author's own.