<div>As a country, we are going to have increasingly younger population. We can only benefit from a young work force if they are educated and possess the necessary skill-set to be employed. Thus, we need to look at improving the education sector and training thecurrently employed workforce to make sure they are upgrading their skill-set. We need this if we hope to create enough jobs for everyone and to be ready as a country for an increasingly knowledge driven economy.<br /> <br />In order to achieve these objectives, we need to do the following at the earliest:</div><ul><li>Evolve a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model for improving the upkeep of existing government schools for primary, secondary, and tertiary education.<br /> </li><li>Develop a mechanism to grant additional funds to states/schools that take actions to reduce drop-out rates in elementary education, ensure high pass percentage in board exams and increase the percentage of female students in schools.<br /> </li><li>Improve the quality of teachers and faculty by imparting training as well as improving compensation for bright graduates to get into teaching as a vocation.<br /> </li><li>Focus on improving quality of education especially in the higher education sector. While we do produce enough professionals (engineers, medical doctors, allied fields, business school graduates), the quality of graduates from many institutions needs to improve substantially for them to be employable in the workplace.<br /> </li><li>Provide incentives for private sector to invest in primary and secondary education.<br />Give tax breaks for the corporate/private sector to develop and support new educational institutions in the rural and industrially backward regions.<br /> </li><li>Provide incentives for private sector to invest in primary and secondary education.</li><li>Give tax breaks for the corporate/private sector to develop and support new educational institutions in the rural and industrially backward regions.<br /> </li><li>Allow the corporate sector to earmark investment in the education sector as Corporate Social Responsibility.<br /> </li><li>Improve outlay for education. As a country, we do not fare well in terms of education sector spending as a proportion of GDP with other BRIC Nations/developing countries.<br /> </li><li>Vocational education needs to be aligned with industry requirements. Create incentives for private sector to upgrade the existing Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) so that ITIs create a pool of readily available workforce for the manufacturing sector.<br /> </li><li>Investment in training of existing workforce by companies should be given tax breaks.<br /> </li><li>Create policies to spur investments in the education sector in the backward regions of the country on the lines of industrially backward region. This will help create inclusive growth and slow down migration from rural areas to urban sectors.</li></ul><div><em>(The author is assistant professor - organisational behaviour, Indian School of Business)</em></div>
