By Hidayat Bukhari

India’s education system is trapped in a syllabus-first mindset while the world demands skills-first thinkers. Unless learning shifts from rote to relevance, the country’s demographic dividend risks becoming a demographic debt.

Each year, India produces an army of graduates—over 1.5 million engineers and millions more in humanities, business, and science. Yet the reality is stark. According to Aspiring Minds’ National Employability Report (2024), only one in five engineering graduates is employable in their core field, and fewer than five percent can code to professional standards.

India’s universities are minting degrees, not capabilities; certificates, not competence. The result is a generation academically qualified but professionally stranded.

A Crisis of Priorities, Not Potential

This is not a crisis of intelligence but of priorities. For decades, Indian education has worshipped the syllabus—a rigid relic that values completion over comprehension. Professors rush to finish it, students cram to clear it, and universities celebrate “100 percent syllabus coverage” as a success metric.

A 2023 AICTE audit found that two-thirds of engineering programmes in India have not updated their curricula in over five years. Employers see the results instantly: a World Bank study found that 64 percent of firms rated new graduates’ job readiness as “below satisfactory”. Meanwhile, NASSCOM estimates Indian companies spend ₹6,000 crore annually retraining new hires before they become productive.

The Syllabus Wall

The syllabus has become the wall separating........

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