Employability of students graduating out of colleges in India has always been a challenge – while it has been consistently on the rise over the last 6 to 7 years as per the India Skills Report 2020, at less than 50%, employability still continues to pose a major problem on the face of employment related challenges in the country. 

Apart from domain knowledge, employers look for adaptability, interpersonal skills, learning agility and positive attitude among other things in the candidates seeking employment in their organizations… 

The biggest lacunae in our education system is the marks-based evaluation process which largely focusses on theoretical aspects of the respective domain, thereby leaving the students high and dry when it comes to practicing what they have learnt. 

Another area where the college curriculum could do well is to train the students on ways to get along in an organization i.e., life skills like interpersonal skills, problem solving, collaboration, etc more with practice than just theory. Personally, I feel that this is one important aspect of learning which is completely ignored in our curriculum. 

Gandhi Ji always believed in a curriculum which had a substantial element of practice along with learning the theoretical aspect of the vocation. He believed that vocations like pottery, carpentry, handicrafts, weaving, farming, etc must be included in regular curriculum even in primary school so that we could establish a balance between bookish knowledge and positive influence of dignity of labor in the young minds. Obviously, the vocations aspired by the students have changed with time, but the concept of linking education to work is as much relevant as it was 70 years ago. 

As per the Wardha scheme of basic education (also known as “Nai Talim”) proposed by Gandhi Ji way back in 1937, “Taken as a whole, a vocation is the best medium for all round development of a child and therefore the syllabus must be woven around the vocational training, primary education thus conceived as a whole is bound to be self supporting…..” 

These tenets of Gandhi Ji’s Nai Talim are being revisited again by various schools involved in Skill Development & Vocational Training so that students are trained in skills which are required by the industry and NeevJivan Foundation is no exception to this. 

We are inspired by this concept and have incorporated the fundamentals of “Nai Talim” in our curriculum with the sole objective of making our students “employable” as they pass out of our institution.