'Practical Connect Is Largely Missing In Indian Academics' Soumitra Bhattacharya, Managing Director, Bosch Ltd, explained the relevance of training potential employees in India to acquire the right skill set.

The job market in India is in a bad shape. Job security is hard to seek because of a series of job cuts initiated by IT firms. Employability of graduates is at an all-time low. Recent studies by experts reveal that less than five-seven per cent of Indian graduates are employable.

With the government of India taking up initiatives like Make-in-India to generate job opportunities for educated youth, it is absolutely imperative for potential employees to have the right skill set suited for jobs in various sectors like manufacturing, software and others.

German engineering conglomerate Bosch Ltd has come up with training programmes tailored to address the demands of India's manufacturing and services industry. The requirements for these two industries are completely different, so candidates should be groomed accordingly in their areas of specialization. The programme designed for the manufacturing industry is focused on long-term, hard-skill development while short-term, soft skills are required for the services industry.

Soumitra Bhattacharya, Managing Director, Bosch Ltd and President, Bosch Group India, in an interview with the Entrepreneur India, explained the relevance of training potential employees in India to acquire the right skill set.

Copying The German "Dual Education System'

"The aim of this vocational training programme, which was started over 53 years ago, is to implement the "dual education system' in India, taking cue from our parent company in Germany. It gives you a very solid foundation in terms of high-quality and industrial skills. Over the years, this programme has helped candidates turn from blue-collar to white collar officers and allowed them to handle pivotal, managerial roles in organizations efficiently," he said.

This is a well-proven system that has been copied from Germany and Indianized to increase the competency of employees, he added.

Connect Between Tailored-Courses And Employability

Addressing how tailored courses can help employability, Bhattacharya said, "In India, we are not very strong in practical training during our professional courses." "Advanced countries in Europe have a very strong practical content in their academics. This phenomena of industry and academic connect is prevalent in some of our best colleges like the IITs and the IIMs, but it is largely missing across the education sector," he rued.

Bhattacharya further said industries have to re-skill fresh engineer graduates for three months or sometimes even a year after hiring them. "That's something academia in India needs to ponder over and upgrade its curriculum," he added.

Bosch Group in India employs over 30,000 associates. It generated consolidated revenue of about Rs17,022 crore in 2015 of which Rs 12,100 crore from third party. The group in India has close to 14,000 research and development associates. Bosch Limited is the flagship company of the Bosch Group in the country and has earned a revenue of over 1.4 billion euros in 2015-16.