The author Ajai Chowdhry, founder of HCL says by 2020, India will emerge as one of the youngest countries with 64% of its population in the working age group. This will give India an unprecedented edge that economists believe can lead to a 2% increase in GDP growth rate.

However, is this workforce suitably skilled? And educated? Is India ready to make the most of this opportunity?

Chowdhry points out, responding to the needs of the day, India has in many ways transformed its higher education landscape through reforms and advancements such as online courses, MOOCs, video classrooms, to make high quality education accessible beyond metros as well as afford it a sense of internationalism and modernism. However, there is more that needs to be done for a sustainable future in higher education and to put India on the global map.

A number of challenges lie ahead. India needs to develop a more research and innovation based approach in classrooms. The fact that professional jobs get precedence over entrepreneurial ambitions needs to change as there is a dire need for good young entrepreneurs who will steer India’s economic growth in coming years. Lack of focus on skill-based training too needs urgent reform to better tackle issues of employability.

Technical education institutions, feels the author can encourage innovation which can lead to business creation. However, every institute nees to look into high quality teaching, mentoring, and skills training among other factors. This is where the UK can step in and provide expertise, knowledge and training to Indian educational institutes through various programmes and workshops. Leading universities such as Babson College, UC Berkeley, Coventry University, University College London, Rotterdam School of Management have entrepreneurship programmes and UK universities can help with this kind of curriculum development to Indian institutes.

The need of the day points towards skill development to create employable students for India’s future. New course development in IT, digital, analytics and cloud will help in pluging this gap in skills training.

How can the UK help? Write to Sunit at Sunit.Koli@in.britishcouncil.org if you would like to explore collaborations and partnerships with Indian institutions in further education.

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