When higher education harms

While we usually equate higher education with increased job opportunities, this is not the case when the economy is bearish. I can remember that ITE and poly graduates were more employable when I went for a career talk about two years ago, and the we were shown some figures about the employability of these grads during the downturn. in India and China. Recently, there's been news that 1.24 million Chinese college students will be jobless, and now we read that Indian college graduates suffer from higher jobless rates compared to high school graduates. China and India are not in the midst of an economic downturn, in fact the economy is booming in these two countries

When higher education harms
Source: Business Times, 18 Dec 2006

Graduates of lesser Indian universities cannot share the spoils of India's booming economy as they lack marketable skills

In the shadow of those marquee institutions, most of the 11 million students in the 18,000 Indian colleges and universities receive starkly inferior training, heavy on obeisance and light on marketable skills, students, educators and business leaders say. All but a tiny handful of graduates are considered employable by top global and local companies.
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A study that the group published last year concluded that just 10 per cent of Indian graduates with generalist degrees were considered employable by major companies, compared with 25 per cent of engineers.
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India is one of those rare countries where you become less able to find a job the more educated you get. College graduates suffer from higher jobless rates - 17 per cent in the 2001 census - than high school graduates. But even as graduates complain of the paucity of jobs, companies across India lament the lack of skilled talent at their disposal.

For years there's been reports of Indian grads not being able to find jobs and having to take up jobs as cabbies. And I remember that either TIMES or Newsweek reported that Chinese grads from vocational training institutes were more employable that college grads. Why is there this anomaly?

Why college grads are unemployable
Some of the reasons cited in the article include

• Lack of marketable skills


• Classroom culture that discourages analysis, debate, creativity

Skills like communication, presentation and writing are lacking in many grads, as half of all Indian college students are taught in languages other than English. 'Hinglish' (I guess it's something like Singlish?) is in widespread use. In addition, many do not have the experience of working in teams or leading them.

Also, a culture that discourages discussion, feedback and encourages rote-learning and subordination breeds a class of grads that are unable to provide creative solutions to problems.

Reflections on local universities

Students in local universities get lessons on business or technical writing, get to do presentations and form groups to do projects, so they do get to learn some soft skills I guess. As extra-curricula activities are mandatory up to secondary schools, most will have acquired some experience of working in groups. Also, for guys, NS does help a bit.

My own experience is that local students do not speak up, though most lecturers and tutors do encourage to do so, to the extent of awarding participation points in class. With the emergence of the seminar-style approach embraced by SMU, I guess more students will have learn to speak up.