The India Skills Report 2022 by Wheebox has found that less than half of India’s youth are employable, and the highest employable age group is 22-25 years. It noted that along with digital skills, potential candidates lack the basic aptitude of applying logic, analytics and creativity. “This implies that skilling, upskilling and reskilling should not stop because that is what will help professionals build sustainable careers,” says Girish Singhania, CEO, EduBridge Learning, in an interview with FE’s Vikram Chaudhary. Excerpts:
What can be the roadmap for solving unemployment problems through skilling intervention?
We need to focus on two things: 1. Integration of skilling: The New Education Policy has touched upon the pressing need to integrate vocational skills in mainstream formal education curriculum. This needs to be solved right at the grassroots level. Skilling needs to be implemented right from the formative years of the student, till the learner graduates from college and move onwards into a job. Skilling at any stage needs to be normalised. There have been several steps in this direction by the government and policymakers, but we still lack the kind of infrastructure to skill millions of learners, and that is when and how edtech companies like us can fill this gap for these young learners and professionals. 2. Online learning: It has taken off well due to the pandemic. EduBridge recently celebrated its 12th year and for most of these years we have been operating using the brick-and-mortar set-ups and academy models. We had approximately 100 such career academies spread across the country and all our courses were offered through face-to-face delivery in a classroom set-up. We also had to digitise our processes and move to hybrid, blended training models. Initially, learners were wary of moving onto the online format, but our master trainers made online education look like a breeze! Hence, the learners who were once against the concept of online learning are now beginning to believe that online learning isn’t exactly impossible. We have successfully placed thousands of learners during the course of the pandemic over the last 18 months across large organisations in BFSI, IT and other sectors. Online learning is here to stay.
What are the emerging skills that corporates need for a hybrid mode of working?
Digital skills are crucial when the pandemic has pushed everything online. It is essential to know at least one programming language. Employers are also looking for employees to have the ability to multi-task and wear multiple hats within the company, and that’s only possible if they’re multi-skilled.
Why did you partner with Capgemini and Amazon Web Services?
It’s a unique opportunity for learners who are not from technology background to switch to tech domain. AWS re/Start, Capgemini and EduBridge have come together to provide learners with relevant cloud-related training that has been created by AWS, supported by Capgemini and will be implemented by EduBridge. This programme will build the required skills for the role of a cloud practitioner or engineer.
What are your expansion plans?
We are now entering the phase of hyper-growth, where in the next 12 months we are looking at extremely high-paced evolution and growth through our online portal and career-based services for the youth.
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