'Among graduates, only 30% job worthy'

NEW DELHI: An assessment of one lakh students on various skills has found that only 34% were employable and women fared better than men in the tests. The survey also found that Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Odisha and West Bengal were among the top states from where the major chunk of "employable pool" emerged. Nagaland, Meghalaya, Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur, Jharkhand and Bihar were among the bottom of the heap. The assessment was carried out by Wheebox, an online assessment firm, and tested the students across 28 states and Union Territories on their numerical and logical ability, communications and domain knowledge. "This means two-thirds of our skill pool is not fit to have a job," the National Skill Report 2014 prepared by CII, People Strong and Wheebox said, pointing to the urgent need to focus on the crucial area of creating jobs and the right skills to add to economic growth. The top 10 cities where maximum employable candidates were available were Ajnala, Dhariwal, Ponneri, Akola, Fatehgarh, New Delhi, Coimbatore and Madurai. The survey also found that the maximum percentage of employable skill was available in pharmacy, followed by engineering, ITI, MCA and MBA. "The top agenda for the next government should be to create a talent pool and jobs," said Nirmal Singh, founder and CEO of Wheebox. The assessment also showed that out of the women who took the tests, about 42% were employable while only 30% men were found fit for jobs. "With such quality of female talent pool available, companies have a great opportunity in hand to improve the gender ratio in their organizations," the report said, quoting the skills test. The top states where most test takers scored well in English were Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Punjab. Kerala and Karnataka. For logical and numeric ability, the states with the best talent were Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Kerala and Karnataka. The cities which performed well under this category were New Delhi, Vadamadurai, Coimbatore, Ghaziabad, Chennai, Erode, Delhi/NCR, Bangalore and Agra. Puducherry emerged as one of the top talent pools and figured among the well-off states in terms of computer skills. Rajasthan, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Haryana and Delhi were among the top states in computer skills, according to the skills tests data. The government is faced with a huge challenge to upgrade skills and improve the education standards to meet the demand of the job market. Experts say huge efforts are need to fill the gap as 12 million youth are being added to the job market. "Not all of them can be doctors or engineers," said Rituparna Chakraborty, senior vice-president of Teamlease, a staffing firm, and called for radical changes. She said the next government must revamp the Apprenticeship Act to make it attractive for employers as well as the youth. "It has to be in tune with the demand of the market place," she said.   TOI