My talk at #XGrad2021 organized by Xebia Educational Alliance on 22 Jan 2021.

1. Bridging the
gap between
Education
and Learning!
Tathagat Varma
Strategy & Operations, Walmart Global Tech
Doctoral Scholar, Indian School of Business

2. Disclaimer!
• These are my personal views and
have no relation to my employer.
• The data referred in this talk
comes from public-domain
materials.
• The views presented are meant to
raise systemic issues and not to
discredit the hard work by those
involved!
• The scope of this talk is for higher
education, and focused on IT
industry.

3. Importance of Education
Education is fundamental for achieving full human potential,
developing an equitable and just society, and promoting
national development. Providing universal access to quality
education is the key to India’s continued ascent, and
leadership on the global stage in terms of economic
growth, social justice and equality, scientific advancement,
national integration, and cultural preservation…India will
have the highest population of young people in the world
over the next decade, and our ability to provide high-quality
educational opportunities to them will determine the future
of our country.
- National Education Policy, 2020

4. So, why “IT” alone?
The world is undergoing rapid changes in the knowledge
landscape. With various dramatic scientific and
technological advances, such as the rise of big data,
machine learning, and artificial intelligence, many
unskilled jobs worldwide may be taken over by machines,
while the need for a skilled workforce, particularly
involving mathematics, computer science, and data
science, in conjunction with multidisciplinary abilities
across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, will
be increasingly in greater demand.
- National Education Policy, 2020

5. Software is
eating the
world…and
the already
short half-
life of IT
knowledge
is reducing
even faster!
https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/cio-insights/tech-skills-is-it-getting-harder-to-keep-up/

6. Agenda
Symptoms of the
Problems
Challenges and Root
Causes
Ideas for Possible
Solutions

7. The
Symptoms
of the
Problems

8. Our Labor
Productivity
(2017)
continues to
among the
lowest…

9. Agriculture
productivity
among the
lowest,
despite
employing
59% of
workforce
contributing
23% of GDP
(2016)

10. Lowest ranked
in Top 40
countries by
Scientific
papers
published per
capita (2015)
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Top-40-countries-by-the-number-of-scientific-papers-published_tbl1_319523994

11. Patents filed
per million
inhabitants
(2015) are the
lowest!
https://www.patent-pilot.com/en/industry-studies/worldwide-industry-study-patent-law-firms-2016/patents-filed-per-one-million-inhabitants/

12. Still a very long
way to go
building global
innovation
competitiveness!

13. …and totally unprepared for an
uncertain but very promising future!
Upskilling India, 2016, IBM Institute for Business Value, https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/RMJXDJWX

14. Just 7 Indian companies in Global
500 (2020)!
https://fortune.com/global500/2020/search/?fg500_country=India

15. “Stubborn Unemployability”!
• In the fifth Edition of NER, Aspiring Minds finds that the employability of Indian
engineers has not changed on aggregate level since 2010 – we call it ‘Stubborn
Unemployability’.
• The employability of Indian engineers continues to be painfully low with more than 80%
engineers unemployable for any job in the knowledge economy
• Only 3.84% of engineers are employable in software-related jobs at start-ups.
• Around 3% engineers possess new-age skills in areas such as AI, Machine Learning, Data
engineering and Mobile technologies. On an aggregate level, employability in these
areas is around 1.5-1.7%.
• US has a much higher proportion of engineers, almost four times, who have good
programming skills as compared to India.
• A much higher percentage of Indian engineers (37.7%) cannot write an error-free code,
as compared to China (10.35%).
• Only 40% of engineering graduates end up doing an internship and 36% do any projects
beyond coursework.
https://www.aspiringminds.com/research-reports/national-employability-report-for-engineers-2019/#

16. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/what-is-making-mba-graduates-more-employable-than-the-engineers/articleshow/72752346.cms

17. …and now it is failing even itself!
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/800-engineering-colleges-to-close-over-low-quality-admissions/articleshow/60334680.cms
The total of 778 colleges got approval for
progressive closure in last 8 years i.e session
2012-13 to 2019-20, an average of 100
colleges gets closed every year. These
colleges are of belong to the below-
mentioned streams:
• Applied Arts and Craft
• Architecture and Town Planning
• Engineering and Technology
• Hotel Management and Catering
• Management
• MCA
• Pharmacy
https://www.entrancezone.com/engineerin
g/aicte-approves-507-colleges-progressive-
closure/

18. The
Challenges
and Root
Causes

19. Symptoms
to the
problems
seem to be
in direct
proportion
to the R&D
investments!

20. Though
the story
really
starts at
the
beginning
…

21. The cycle continues from home to
the colleges…
https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/news/story/93-indian-students-aware-of-just-seven-career-options-what-are-parents-doing-wrong-1446205-2019-02-04

22. Even the premier institutes don’t
seem to be able to have it all!
https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/news/story/over-2-800-faculty-positions-vacant-at-iits-3-211-at-nits-1565169-2019-07-09

23. Is the
curriculum
serving us,
or are we
serving it?
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.
com/home/education/90-
Indian-universities-have-
outdated-curriculum-CNR-
Rao/articleshow/49671332.cms

24. The desire is there, but where are
the PhDs?
https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/press-releases_13062018.pdf
Of the 6,000 people granted science PhDs annually, not even 2,000 find decent employment today. – Prof T.
Pradeep, IIT Madras, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/how-far-does-a-phd-go/article24988294.ece

25. Multiple challenges abound…
Upskilling India, 2016, IBM Institute for Business Value, https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/RMJXDJWX

26. The world we
live in…

27. Knowledge
is doubling
every 12
hours!
(In 1982, Buckminster
Fuller introduced his
“knowledge-doubling
curve.” To this, IBM added
its post-1982 predictions)
https://learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/2468/marc-my-words-the-coming-knowledge-tsunami

28. Tech knowledge decays the
fastest!
Schüppel (1996)
estimates the “half-life
period” (i.e. the time
which passes until only
half of knowledge on
hand is still up-to-date)
of technological and
statistical knowledge at
1-2 years and that of
university-level
knowledge at 5 years.
https://doi.org/10.4000/rga.475

29. We
were
warned!

30. Ideas for
solutions…

31. There are several opportunities…
Upskilling India, 2016, IBM Institute for Business Value, https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/RMJXDJWX

32. …and Tech could play a big role!
Upskilling India, 2016, IBM Institute for Business Value, https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/RMJXDJWX

33. Recommendations are great, but
probably not easy to action on…
Develop more practical, applied, experience-based
education
• Rethink higher education curricula
• Identify opportunities in current curricula to infuse
experience-based and real-world learning
experiences, such as internships and
apprenticeships.
• Embrace new teaching technologies and
techniques that support experimental learning and
customized coaching.
• Partner with industry
• Build alliances with industry partners to identify
and validate particular needs for specific skills. •
• Work with partners to establish apprenticeships,
internships and other practical programs.
• Share learning and refine strategies
• Develop a benefits-realization plan to monitor and
evaluate the impact of real-world learning
programs on student skills and capabilities. •
• Create a framework for sharing and adopting best
practices with higher education institutions across
the nation.
Embrace technologies that improve education
access, experience and outcomes.
• Assess current capabilities and requirements
• Engage core customers to evaluate existing
capabilities, programs and mechanisms for
providing access, experience and variety to identify
opportunities for improvement. •
• Evaluate analytics capabilities and decision-support
tools within the ecosystem to identify opportunities
to enhance decision making and improve student
outcomes.
• Experiment with what’s possible using new
technologies
• Closely monitor new education innovations and
validate disruptive technologies (such as analytics,
cognitive computing and simulation modeling)
that can enable expanded access, experience and
variety to help improve outcomes. •
• Pursue opportunities to experiment and to broaden
organizational acceptance of the inevitability of
failure as well as success in the process of
innovation.
• Extend capabilities through ecosystem partners
• Identify and evaluate new opportunities to expand
access, experience and variety by leveraging
capabilities, resources and assets of ecosystem
partners. •
• Conceptualize and execute new operating and
business models working with partners that would
be unattainable if operating alone.
Build deeper relationships with ecosystem
partners
• Identify the right partners and empower an
orchestrator
• Identify key potential ecosystem partners from
academia, industry and the public sector.
• Define, empower and enable a strong intermediary
to recruit partners, build consensus among
partners and orchestrate emergent ecosystems.
• Crystalize your partner vision and gain
commitment
• Define and reach consensus with key partners
around a common vision for the education
ecosystem, with clearly defined commitments from
all partners. •
• Define business intelligence requirements and
strategies for collecting and sharing data among
partners.
• Formalize processes and design for sustainability
• Define and formalize processes, accountability
mechanisms and governance requirements to help
ecosystem partners remain engaged and
committed. •
• Encourage partners to align internal business
metrics to the ecosystem vision.
Upskilling India, 2016, IBM Institute for Business Value, https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/RMJXDJWX

34. “10-20-30”
10% Change:
of each subject
every year
20% Teaching:
by industry
professionals
30% Learning:
based on a real-
life project

35. 10%
Change

37. 20%
Teaching

39. 30%
Learning

40. All life is problem solving
– Karl Popper