Volume 1 - Issue 8 - ICTACT.IN

Academician Columntencies in potential hires depending onthe business it’s in. Industry also looks formulti skilled individuals. The unemploymentis not because of lack of job opportunitiesbut due to lack of skill available inthe job aspirants.These skills are termed as employabilityskills.Employability skills refer to specificskills essential for employment. Theseare the critical tools and traits required toperform tasks at workplace. These skillsare much sought after these days by employers.The needs of employability skillsdiffer from country to country and fromsector to sector and from time to time.However, certain qualities such as communicationskills, interpersonal skills, integrity,right attitude, problem solving, decisionmaking and team building skills canbe taken as a few common skills of employabilityskills. In simple Employabilityskills are the ‘ready for work’ skills vital todo the job!Reasons for low level of employabilityskills among studentsAcademic qualityNo educational institution can surviveunless it can attract competent youngteachers into its fold. All professional collegesface serious problems in this regard;they cannot compete with the outsidemarket in terms of financial package.Non availability of qualified faculty, forcesthe educationist to appoint fresh handon teaching. Lack of exposure and experiencemakes the quality of input poor. Theother reason is some of the teachers useready made notes which were preparedby them when they were students; it isnot updated and is transferred to the students.Decades ago teaching was consideredto be noble profession and competentpeople only took up teaching as carrier,but today teaching is mostly preferredby those who are not able to get a job inthe industry and is considered as a stopgap arrangement to continue their livingthey their goals are reached.Non relevant curriculumThe world being changing so fast, butthe reforms have not been implementedat the same phase. Most of the curriculumfollowed by university and its affiliatedcolleges were prepared a decade agoand still been thought.These syllabus are not industry specificand don’t meet the need of the industrywhich reduces the level of employability ofthe students.Teaching learning process in mothertongueMost of the professional collegesteach the subjects to the students in theirmother tongue, the communication languagein the campus is a language whichis spoken widely in that region and notEnglish. Most of the faculty give the reasonsthat, the advantage of higher understandingamong students to equip them inthe subject is due to mother tongue, butwhen they are tested for their communicationskill in the selection process they failor rejected.Mushroom growth of institutionsEngineering colleges have mushrooming,On side two to five colleges are addedvery year across Tamil nadu and the otherside existing colleges are ballooning uptheir intake of seats. The way quantity ofgraduates is increasing year by year hasresulted in decrease of quality talent pool.We are compromising with quality for thesake of quantity. Engineering education isabout knowledge, know-how, and character.Mushrooming of educational institutesin India couldn’t keep up the qualityof education.Gap between Academy and IndustryOne of the main reasons for the loweremployability skills among students andnon availability of talented aspirants to industryis the gap between academy andindustry. The interaction and participationfrom both sides are lower.Industry has variety of needs accordingto the changing job nature but this notcommunicated or accepted by the academy,they offer a tailor made course andcurriculum which is not relevant to the industryneed. Many institutions like ICATCTare trying to bridge the gap, but they havetouched only the tip of the ice berg.ConclusionEmployability skills and personal valuesare the critical tools and traits studentsneed to succeed in the workplace --and they are all elements that they haveto learn, cultivate, develop, and maintainover your lifetime.“If colleges want to improve the employabilityof their graduates, they haveto focus on reducing these important skillgaps through improvements in curriculumand teaching methods.” said HiroshiSaeki, an analyst at the World Bank. Headded “Most important, graduates have tobe able to formulate, analyse, and solve areal life problem using standard engineeringtechniques”.More academic abilities alone will notbe adequate.What is essential is something beyondacademic domain such as communicationskills, problem solving skills, communicationskills which are known as employabilityskills. When applicants possess theseskills then it becomes easier for employersto train other technical skills easily.To sum, both educational institutions andindustry should work together for enhancingemployability skills as it is rightly saidthat you need to clap with both hands toget the results.It is high time to stop playing the blamegame and start working with Industry andschools to enhance the employability issue.June 2013 I 42