India has been designated as a ‘young’ country, with 75% of its population in the working-age group. The overall economy is significantly driven by this younger cohort of the workforce. However, skill assessments estimate that only 51.25% of youth are employable. Furthermore, only 4.4% of youth have received formal vocational training, while about 16.6% have acquired informal training.
Each year, approximately 12 million new entrants are expected to join the Indian workforce. The available training capacity, however, is much lower—around 4.3 million—indicating a significant skill gap.
According to a report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), India is projected to face a deficit of nearly 29 million skilled personnel by 2030. In 2019, Accenture predicted that if India does not take timely actions—such as investing in new technologies and developing industry-ready skills—the skill deficit could cost the country US$ 1.97 trillion in GDP over the next decade. In addition, data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) show that the redundancy rate dropped from 9.1% in December 2020 to 4.9% in 2024.
Keeping this scenario in mind, the Union Cabinet approved the continuation and restructuring of the Skill India Programme until 2026, with an outlay of ₹8,800 crore (2022-23 to 2025-26), combining PMKVY 4.0, NAPS (Apprenticeship), and JSS (Jan Shikshan Sansthan) schemes.
With this background, higher educational institutions are expected to integrate vocational and mainstream education through mutual credit portability under the National Credit Framework, to facilitate skill development among youth graduating from colleges and universities.
Since the Kothari Commission, the idea of vocationalisation has been discussed as a way to bridge the gap between industry and academia, yet it has rarely been implemented in both spirit and practice within academic institutions. Degrees offered by higher education institutions are often viewed as irrelevant by industries, as they do not align with the professional standards expected in the workplace. As a result, students are often required to unlearn academic knowledge and relearn it according to industry expectations.
What prevents industries from engaging with academia through a sustainable win-win model? Do we speak a different language from industries, thereby becoming disengaged from the world of work? Are industries and academia simply on different pages? How can we meaningfully implement skill development programmes in higher education to address the skill deficit and contribute to the economy? This article attempts to explore these questions.
The skill development programmes we currently offer are often not mapped to professional standards. How, then, should these programmes be designed?
The Choice Based Credit System (CBCS), introduced by the UGC in 2003, and the more recent Outcome-Based Education (OBE) framework both emphasize skill development. However, while the CBCS structure included skill-building components, no clear SOPs were provided by the government for effective implementation. Similarly, though OBE explicitly stresses skill development, state governments have been left to design their own schemes, often in collaboration with corporates and industries. The key challenge lies in implementing these schemes with clear deliverables through genuine collaboration between academia and industry.
Let us examine some of the nuances involved in implementing skill development programmes in the absence of clear guidelines or benchmarks.
A roadmap for integrating vocational elements
The first issue concerns curriculum design. In their efforts to build a culture of skill development, higher educational institutions often create courses without corresponding industry portfolios. It is crucial to align course design with new-age designations and roles emerging from technological and socio-political changes. Given that many academicians are not closely acquainted with current industry developments, appointing Professors of Practice (POP)—industry experts, ideally drawn from the institution’s alumni—can help ensure that degree programmes and courses are mapped authentically to contemporary professional portfolios.
Secondly, higher educational institutions must understand and adopt professional or vocational standards when benchmarking curricula. Professional standards can be understood as authentic industry practices or standard operating procedures (SOPs) for performing specific tasks. The National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF), developed by the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), can serve as a reference for aligning courses with these standards. Since industry practitioners (POPs) may not be familiar with curriculum design under the OBE framework, academic faculty should collaborate with them to integrate industry practices into OBE by mapping graduate, programme, programme-specific, and course outcomes appropriately.
Thirdly, for authentic implementation, each skill development module must clearly define performance indicators, workplace tasks, and assessment rubrics. POPs can play vital roles in assessment, industry liaison, supervising capstone projects, offering mentorship, building student career portfolios, gathering employer feedback, and curating labour market signals periodically.
Fourthly, a robust AI-enabled skill profiling system should be developed to map students’ programmes with their skills, interests, and passions through practical tasks, simulations, or real-time problem-solving exercises. This would generate a snapshot of each student’s competency inventory, helping them make informed decisions when choosing course modules. Additionally, aptitude assessments—including numeracy and spatial reasoning—along with reviews of prior learning and career aspirations, would guide students toward purpose-driven modules aligned with their goals.
Fifthly, mapping skill development programmes to career, academic, and entrepreneurship pathways would make the initiatives more impactful.
Career pathways involve mapping competencies to job roles at entry, intermediate, and senior levels to design appropriate course modules.
Academic pathways focus on developing foundational skills for higher studies by analyzing learner analytics to support interdisciplinary or cross-major progression.
Entrepreneurship pathways should be designed for students who demonstrate entrepreneurial aptitude, guiding them through identifying pain points, ideating solutions, creating pitch decks, business modeling, lean startup processes, and legal compliance—thus preparing them for vocational pursuits.
Finally, while skill development is increasingly being managed by industry under Learning and Development (L&D) verticals, establishing Centres of Excellence within academic campuses dedicated to skill development, innovation, and entrepreneurship can greatly accelerate implementation and ensure sustained impact.
(The author is currently serving as the Principal and Secretary, Madras Christian College, Chennai, India)
