India has been staring at a severe unemployment crisis with about 24 million out of the 556 million labour force being unemployed. A recent report titled India’s Graduate Skill Index 2025 showed that only 42.6 per cent of Indian graduates are employable, hinting at troubling trends and highlighting the need for better skilling of people.
At a recent event held in the city, Cambridge University Press & Assessment launched an advisory panel comprising leaders from top global corporations, aiming to bridge the employability gap in India and better align academic output with industry needs. A whitepaper released at the event highlighted the growing importance of communication skills, the need for stronger collaboration between industry and universities, and strategies to bridge the persistent skill gap.
Arun Rajamani, Managing Director of Cambridge University Press & Assessment, South Asia, spoke to The Hindu on the sidelines of the event about the critical skills that need to be imparted to people to be part of a global workforce, the many persisting challenges that could be addressed with industry-academia collaboration and the paradox of abundance of talent and rising unemployability.
Can you give us an overview of the challenges the Indian workforce face in terms of skills?
India is looking at a great opportunity on account of its demographic dividend over the next several years. It’s a workforce that will truly take on global roles and create global impact. The biggest challenge of this workforce is the lack of their relevant skills today.
There are four clusters of skills today. Domain is one of them. The other ones are skills related to adaptability, interpersonal skills and skills related to how cognitively people can move forward. Three of them, together play a bigger role in a person’s success and ability to work in a global workforce as compared to just the domain skills.
The academia today is unable to define how these four skills can come in equal measure or in good measure. This is where organisations like Cambridge could be that bridge between industry, academia and future workforce by bringing the three together and perhaps include policymakers at some level to see how these problems could be solved.
How do you bridge this gap?
There have been some interesting recommendations coming in from the industry in terms of actions, including understanding what the Gen Z’s expectations are.
Often people are keen to accuse that Gen Z does not have certain skills, they don’t have the discipline, they don’t have the ability and so on. But it is what it is. This is the next generation of the workforce. How many times have we gone back to them asking what they need or what drives them or what motivates them.
So, this is an opportunity for us to understand what their expectations, see how we could fine tune the expectations on both sides and then find out how they could become an integral part of our solutioning. So, that will be one of the bridges.
The other part is also to empower the faculty members because things are changing so much in the industry and the faculty also needs to keep pace with that. So, we are also looking at how Cambridge, the partners and academia work together in terms of addressing some of those challenges.
Do you think the existing education system should be tweaked to meet the needs of the future workforce?
Absolutely yes. The government is taking measures to fix the school education system through the national education policy and the reforms that are underway to ensure that skills are taught in equal measure compared to knowledge. This includes communication skills, other critical thinking skills and curiosity skills. It’s a very good measure for the long term.
But in the current term, how do we empower this generation to be successful? That’s where we need to figure out shorter term solutions within the higher education term or the tenure that the students are going through. And we have only four years.
There are practical problems. A number of graduates today are first time graduates in their family. Many of them might have studied in vernacular medium schools in their hometowns, their parents and relatives may not be English-speaking and there is a probability that their communication skills are limited. Changing that is not an easy task. This needs deep rooted tactical interventions, and the government is attempting that through its Skill India Mission.
We have an active part there to ensure that we are able to empower people with skills in communication. If the industry, academia, government policy makers and the skills programmes come together, short term solutions can be implemented while we think about the longer-term solutions.
Given that English language and communication skills are going to be critical to build a global workforce, wouldn’t NEP’s strong push in terms of making regional language the medium of instruction in schools pose a hindrance?
I think it’s complementing in nature. Studies after studies have proven that cognitive capabilities improve when students are able to master multiple languages. Inherently as a race and as a nation, we have had an advantage because of our multi diverse culture and languages. Most of us can speak at least two languages, if not read and write. I think that’s the added dimension today that increases the success rates of Indians in the global workforce. So, what the government is doing is to ensure that there is equal focus on the vernacular or the mother tongue as well as English skills. English skills are no longer a privilege to have, it’s a necessity.
Therefore, there is also the realization that you need to have bridge programmes between vernacular to English. The NEP recommends up to grade eight the choice to either study in English or in the mother tongue. But grade nine onwards, it ensures that you move to an English medium of instruction. This is the bridge that’s the most difficult to cross.
If bilingual education is offered in the right way in schools, this transition path will be much easier. But how do you then empower students who have not gone through the transition path? That’s a problem that the skills initiatives are likely to solve.
NEP advocates for regional language as the medium of instruction until at least Grade 5, and preferably until Grade 8. But to be a part of the future global workforce, wouldn’t English as a medium of instruction from earlier on help?
It will. But then again, we have to be sensitive to the fact that many of them may not have that privilege. So having good, structured, equitable bridging plans are important to help them transition. You need very focused interventions that are rapid, quick and effective for them to learn English. Technology can play a very big role. It’s also important that the programmes must be accessible, affordable and impactful.
This is where players like Cambridge come in.We come in with a mastery of how language can be taught. The industry understands the needs very well and the way jobs are shifting in terms of skill sets. So, by bringing Cambridge, academia and industry coming together, we can figure out the most effective solutions.
What would be the nature of these interventions or solutions?
Interventions could look at how do you change the existing curriculum or how do you adapt curriculum in a better way, how do you impact the capability of faculty members, how do you bring in more experts and practitioners into the curriculum framework, how do you bring industry to offer internships on both sides, and so on. We will have to work on making these into working programmes.
There is a lot of conversation around the abundance of talent in India. But at the same time, we also have a huge unemployed problem currently in the country. Do you see this as a paradox?
I would rather focus on the opportunity here. I think we have the opportunity to shape one of the most resilient workforces in the future, with skills that could make them globally relevant, successful and with an ability to drive the most amount of innovation out of this region. What we really need to do is to empower these students with the right skills, the right opportunities, and with the right platforms for them to succeed.