Sunstone Eduversity collaborates with WheeBox, CII, AICTE, AIU and UNDP to launch “India Skills Report 2022”

Sunstone Eduversity, one of India’s higher education providers, collaborated with CII, AICTE, AIU and UNDP to launch “India Skills Report 2022”. The study was conducted by WheeBox, wherein 1000+ MBA freshers from 23 Sunstone campus partners in Tier I, II and III cities took the Wheebox National Employability Test, WNET. As per the test results, most Indian students need better training for skills set development in the critical, analytical, and communicational areas—a finding also highlighted by recruiters as a skills gap in the report.

In a panel discussion on “Deciphering Industry Expectations” at the launch of the India Skills Report 2022, Piyush Nangru, Co-founder and COO, Sunstone Eduversity, discussed the challenges and trends of industry expectations with Dr Usha Titus (CMD, Additional Skill Acquisition Programme, Kerala), Sandeep Chaudhary (CEO, PeopleStrong) and Biswaroop Mukherjee (HR Head, Tata Motors). In this discussion, panellists acknowledged the significance of industry-oriented education in keeping up with dynamic industry requirements and making the youth employment-ready.

Speaking in the panel, Nangru said, “Soft skills are at the core of the 21st century corporate world. In the present job market, corporates prefer hiring freshers with a stronghold on transferable skills, so that they can be readily absorbed in different processes. It is crucial for educators to align their curriculum with the evolving requirements of recruiters. Presently, the adaptability of India’s higher education curriculum is slower than the pace at which industry/corporations function and hence the need for updating curriculum as well as the pedagogy at a much faster pace is extremely important. Through its monitored learning management system, which is a part of the curriculum, Sunstone Eduversity offers dedicated learning hours for each one of the skill sets required in the industry, and devotes 2100+ hours in training, bootcamps and various preparation guidelines to create job-ready graduates. Based on the findings of WNET, we will continue to focus on the key skills gap to prompt an overall improvement in employability rate.”

According to India Skills Report 2022, India’s employability has improved marginally, going up to 46.2 per cent from last year’s 45.9 per cent. Below are other key highlights from the report:

1. Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, and West Bengal identified as the regions with the highest employable youth.

2. The demand for qualified and skilled professionals will be driven by sectors such as IT/ITES, Pharmaceutical, E-commerce, and BFSI. In 2022, the hiring in these sectors is expected to increase by 20 per cent for freshers.

3. At 51.44 per cent, employability of women found to be higher than that of men, which stands at  45.97 per cent.

4. Out of the 150 corporates surveyed, 75 per cent expressly stated that there was a skills gap in their workforce.

5. The survey was conducted across industries like IT/ITES, BFSI, Retail, Manufacturing, Pharma and Healthcare.

Speaking at the launch of India Skills Report 2022, Nirmal Singh, CEO and Founder, WheeBox said, “With innovation at scale and improved access to internet services, the job-seeking demographic of India will surely benefit from private and public skilling initiatives in the coming months and years. We have already witnessed that soft skill development, networking, coding, software computing, cloud development, economic analysis, chartered accountancy, and public relations skills have gained prominence in a vast segment of urban and rural India. No longer will young India be torn with the archaic ‘Science or Commerce stream’ question that has bewildered them in the past. The introduction of new hybrid courses and top-tier university partnerships have made knowledge acquisition more specialized and skill-driven.”