Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that a disconcerting aspect of the country’s education system is the mismatch between supply and demand of skilled manpower.
In his address at the inauguration of the Chavara Excellence for Social Transformation lecture series at Sacred Heart College at Thevara here on Friday, Dr. Singh said that already a large proportion of India’s four lakh technology graduates and 2.5 million general college graduates passing out every year were unable to find work.
“Paradoxically, that is not due to lack of jobs. According to the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), it is [due] to lack of the requisite skills,” he said.
Dr. Singh said the nation’s unique selling point is the pool of skilled manpower, which it needs to nurture consistently in order to maintain our competitive edge. “We have heard that Bangaluru has come up as a rival to Silicon Valley, but we need to develop many ‘Bangalurus’ in locations that are dispersed and affordable. Our supply of skilled manpower must continue to grow, keeping wages stable and moving more and more Indians into the mainstream of economic growth,” he said.
Dr. Singh also laid the foundation stone for Building Space for Excellence, the jubilee project of the Sacred Heart autonomous college, on the occasion.
