The New Age Of Learning And India's Slow Steps Forward

With countries shifting to a more knowledge-based economy, learning has gained a lot of interest in recent times. Rapid skill changes and evolving talent demands reflect a need to keep up with what the markets demand. Can technology be efficiently leveraged to solve this growing demand?

- Dhruv Mukerjee

One of the largest impacts of technological advancements— and its often consumer-driven nature— has been in the way we consume information. Not only have methodologies advanced owing to a shift in technological applications, but there’s also been a definite rise in the need to remain knowledgeable to function better. Learning has been ever more prevalent in what today is slowly becoming an increasingly knowledge-driven society. And businesses remain no exception to this.

Learning, for most parts of modern human history, has been the result of institutionalized education. Although personal experiences form a large part of an individual’s learning, it’s been the case of a superior, institution-driven, certification based form of learning that’s gained importance. Businesses too followed suit and began preferring to hire from the best of institutions, taking certifications as a given mark of excellence. But if one looks closely, the existence of such institutions have always fallen short of their demand. Over the years this has resulted in subpar education institutes coming up to fill the gaps and passing candidates who may be unqualified to procure well-paying jobs. Those passing out of such schools and universities often find themselves to be unemployable upon entering the jobs market. This has been one of the many systemic reasons that drive over 80 percent of the working population into the unorganized workforce.

This mismatch of quality and education is further compounded by the fact the nature of jobs themselves are rapidly evolving. The shelf life of skills, especially the tech-related ones, are quite short in comparison to the one's decade or even years before. Today not only do the millions entering jobs market require skilling opportunities, but even managers and professionals with years of experience also find themselves on thin ice.