NEP Review Panel Pushes to Make 3 Crore Students Job-Ready

New Delhi: The chairman of the Education Ministry's review committee on the National Education Policy 2020 has said the panel is pushing hard to make students "work-ready" through tie-ups with companies and employers. Mamidela Jagadesh Kumar, who chairs the committee, told The New Indian Express that the NEP review panel is focused on nearly 3 crore undergraduates enrolled in B.A., B.Sc and B.Com courses across the country, and wants them to gain the skills their future jobs will demand.

Kumar pointed to the All India Survey on Higher Education 2023-24, which puts higher-education enrolment at 4.5 crore students, 76.8 per cent of them undergraduates. B.A., B.Com and B.Sc students form the majority, and the NEP review panel's push is aimed at turning them into job-ready graduates with the competence employers look for.

NEP review panel sets its focus

The Apprentice Embedded Degree Programme is the centrepiece of the push. The pilot is running in 30 universities, where students can spend a year or up to 18 months of their undergraduate course gaining live industry experience. The Apprentice Embedded Degree Programme is optional: Kumar said it is designed with the student's best interest in mind, helping them apply classroom knowledge to real problems, and students who want a purely academic degree are free to take that route.

The response from workplaces, colleges and universities has been "very encouraging", he said. The NEP review panel plans to extend the programme across all states and union territories in the future, as part of the NEP 2020 implementation.

How the NEP review panel sees the AEDP working

Efforts are being made to place students for apprenticeship within their own city, so they do not have to migrate for work. Kumar said this also boosts the local economy. Some firms pay the students a stipend while others offer hands-on training without pay. Students under a government apprenticeship scheme are financially compensated, he said. The industry apprenticeship model the NEP review panel wants to build on keeps students close to home while giving them live work exposure.

The committee also plans to involve local district magistrates in future, since they understand their area well and can offer guidance to colleges. Bombay University has made good progress on the programme, discussions are on with vice-chancellors in West Bengal, and the focus moves to Odisha shortly and Guwahati next month. Mamidela Jagadesh Kumar noted that UGC guidelines already allow eligible institutions to offer the programme, adding that he began work on these lines during his time at the Commission.

What comes next for the NEP review panel

"Currently the degrees offered at higher educational institutions are merely transcripts and students do not gain the requisite skills and competency to be work-ready. Newer opportunities are coming and they must be made ready for them," Kumar said. The push for undergraduate employability runs through the industry apprenticeship model rather than classroom teaching alone.

Kumar, the former UGC chairman and former JNU vice-chancellor, was appointed to head the review committee in January this year. Its members include the Secretary of Higher Education and vice-chancellors of several universities, and its main job is to track how state governments are carrying out the NEP 2020 implementation. The panel's work will feed into how undergraduate employability is built into degree programmes, and the NEP review panel will keep its discussions with universities going in the coming months to build job-ready graduates across the country.