India's higher education system not good enough to provide new employees with the right skills: IBM

India’s higher education system is not responding well to society’s changing needs, making it difficult for the industry to find new employees with the right skills, says a study conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV). Only 40 per cent of Indian executives surveyed in the study indicated new employees recruited in local labour markets possess the requisite job skills, IBM said in a statement on Thursday. Most of India’s venture capitalists (70 percent) indicated that start-ups cannot find employees with the right skills. The IBM study entitled “Upskilling India” is based on insights from a survey of academics, corporate recruiters, and emerging education leaders in India. In addition, the study also analysed results of recent surveys of startup entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and corporate executives. “Skill is emerging as the new currency across businesses globally and in India. Today’s rapidly evolving economic environment makes up-skilling an imperative across job profiles and sectors. India is caught by both a skill gap and a higher education sector struggling to keep up,” said DP Singh, Vice President and Head - HR, IBM India/ South Asia. The Indian executives surveyed believe that much of the nation’s current higher education system fails to meet the needs of students, industry and society.  More than 60 percent of India’s educators surveyed in the study indicated that the higher education system was unable to respond to changing societal needs. Between 2010 and 2030, India’s working population is expected to expand from 750 million to almost one billion.