Employability is an essential requirement of a professional course. If the employability factor is not built in to the curriculum, then it is incomplete. There are courses which are for the sake of knowledge, for the sake of building other competencies, but not a professional course like MBA. An institute can have selection criteria to any level, but if the students are not prepared for the professional life, then it is incomplete. SMOT gives utmost importance to employability of its graduates by bringing in focus on what kind of job roll will fit a particular student and what kind of learning to be imparted to the student to achieve that objective. This is fundamental. In the absence of this, there is no point telling the world that we are creating leaders of future when the students do not even know which job they are best at.
Aug 07
August 12th, 2007 at 2:00 am
WHAT IS EMPLOYABILITY ?
Employability is a hot topic today and virtually every day and every medium has something to say about it . Did every one understnad it the same way or would anyone care to explain as to how it was menat to be understood ? I was somewhat curious to find out as to what the term employability meant to people and was surprised at the plethora of views expressed.
I thought of at least airing the meaning I hold in my mind.
My views are not final.
They are being offered for people to critique and comment on how relevant or sensible they find my understanding to be.
The intent of this mail is to clarify two things .
1. What does employeability mean to me ?
The industry earns money 4 ways and wants their employees to help them to earn more. I categorise these companies and their emplyees into 4 levels of maturity .
Level ONE companies want their emloyees to apply what they already know and expect them to apply their known solutions to known situations . This is the KSO to KSI variety . Employees who qualify for these are at employability level ONE. They may make a terrific start but soon peter out if they do not acquire new solutions to meet the situations of tomorrow . .
Level TWO companies may expet their employees to apply Known solutions (KSO) to Unresolved situations (URSI). This ‘KSO to URSI’ category may address issues like “Why are the well educated and seemingly well paid employees so restless so early in their career lives ?” Such employers do not expect their employees to be very original but at least stay curious or be investigative enough to unravel the mysteries of the Unresolved situations. They can at the very least test the limits of the adequacy of what they know by putting themselves to periodic test. Such a research oriented employee cannot be the product of ‘cram your subjects during study holidays and get through the exam but fail in life’ school of thinking. While they may be very active, they will expect to get rewarded for the activity but not the results! Why, because, they will be like a hammer thinking that everything that they strike should ‘quite naturally be a nail!”; Good news is that they may be very active bt the bad news is that they may be wasteful. Actually their knowledge that has not taught them to discriminate may place them and their employer at a disadvantage . For their courage to address the unresolved situations (URSI), they deserve to be elevated to employeability scale of TWO.
Employability at maturity level 3 is the KSO to UKSI- applying known solutions to unknown situations . URSI is a sitution that is real and has happened but is yet to be resolved ; UKSI is a situation waiting to happen soon but not yet materialized. Example is the appreciation of the Indian Rupee aginst the US dollar. It is impending and known solutions are available . But someone is still waiting for orders permitting them to resolve a situation for which a proven solution is at hand and the problem is anyway around the corner . No, we wait for a subsidy or expect someone else to chip in and bail us out . We elevate them to employability level 3 because at least they see the problem and solution in a connected sense. However , they are neither resourceful nor self driven as to wait for orders. But they are nice oraments to adorn the board room. They may be good at recovering a situation after they have happended but should never be accused of being proactive . Even though they may be gifted with clairvoyance, they would not alert the organization nor ‘blow the wihistle’ for fear that they may interrupt the sleep of the ones who are soon to become history !
Employabilty Level 4 is dedicated to the UKSO to UKSI - people may be finding solutions that are unknown today to situations that are likely to strike in the future with a high degree of probability . They are the seers. Eclectic in their thinking , they do not swear allegience to any one pet school of wisdom but continually put the value of what they know to exploiting the potentials that reside in the future. They mix and match their knowledge with intiution and validate their approach with sutudious research.
On the eve of the 60th year of Political Independence , SMOT should usher in an era of intellectual independence ! To quote Rabindra Nath Tagore, “let my country secure deliverance from an era that has sunk into the dull routines of dead habits!
Let us vow to release the future generations from their soft bigotry with low expectations. I guess this is what employability means for SMOT.
Now to my second question:
2. How do I envison SMOT promoting the subject of employability as a part of its offering to the students and the industry ?
I will reserve my views on the second question depending upon the response evoked by my first question. Until next time then,
Happy Independence day !
Shekar
August 12th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Sekhar - that was quite a bit!
Quite frankly, at the first stage, which is where SMOT is in right now, I think we have to get the acceptability first. When you look at it, it will take at least 2 years after the first batch has been placed for the industry to form an opinion of what SMOT does and can do. Which means that we also have to wait that long for the industry to give us a feedback.
Hence the definition of employability at this stage, at least from the students point of view, is quite simply “Will somebody come here and pick me up?” This presupposes imparting a certain degree of knowledge in the subject and inculcating the essentials of corporate life in the student so that he is able to deliver.
I think at this stage this is what we have to focus on if we want a good report card 3 years from now.