Can New Education Policy 2020 Serve as a Paradigm Shift to the Employability Gap in India?: A Viewpoint

Can New Education Policy 2020 Serve as a Paradigm Shift to the Employability Gap in India?: A Viewpoint

Shakti Chaturvedi, Sonal Purohit, Meenakshi Verma
Copyright: © 2022 |Pages: 16
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-8243-5.ch009
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Abstract

Employment and employability have lately surfaced as a significant concern for India that stands as the world's second central higher education system. The post-COVID-19 era further demanded a comprehensive policy at the national level. The Indian government approved the new education policy (NEP), bringing changes to higher education in the country on 29th July 2020. After an exhaustive reading of all education policies published in Indian literature, the authors present this viewpoint chapter, contributing to the extant literature on education policies in the following three ways. The first purpose is to evaluate and compare the current NEP 2020 to the last two educational policies of 1968 and 1986 to understand how far each policy could realize the goal of employability. The second purpose is to adumbrate the gaps between industry and academia in the proposed NEP 2020 to propose some transformative steps to fill the outlined gap. Thirdly, the main findings are depicted through a graphical representation to give some directions for future policy and research in employability.
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Introduction

Employment and employability have recently surfaced as a significant dilemma for India that requires immediate attention (Tilak, 2020). Previous researchers have given various definitions of employability that include knowledge, attitude, and skills that increase the capability of gaining employment (Khare, 2014). Employability is primarily looked upon as an 'attribute' covering a spectrum of 'getting a graduate job' and a 'product of skillful career planning and interview technique' (Yorke & Knight, 2004, 2006). The employability concerns were identified even among the educated youth who lack the desired skills, thus exacting the need for plugging the existing gaps in the education system (Khare, 2014). In the words of Malcolm X, “Education is the visa to the future, for tomorrow has a place for the individuals who get ready for it today.” According to the India skills report, only 46.21% of the educated youth was found employable in 2019, highlighting a severe apprehension towards the existing policies. The ineffectiveness of direct job creation to tackle employment issues has been corroborated across the world (Mehta, 2020). As per the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economics (CMIE), the employment rate skyrocketed to 23.5 percent in April and May due to the hard lockdown in post COVID eras (Chaturvedi et. al, 2020).

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