Are we preparing students for jobs or just preparation?
A policy report from halfway across the world caught my eye. Released in the UK, titled ‘Young people and work’, it paints a sobering picture of a growing population of young people classified as NEET - Not in Education, Employment or Training.
My immediate instinct was to contrast this with what I see around me every day in India. We don’t have a crisis of voluntary inactivity; we have a culture of intense, almost breathless competition.
One sentence, in particular, made me pause: “For young people especially, the first steps into work are often the first steps into adult life.”
Historically, a first job wasn’t just a financial transaction. They were how young people quietly built confidence, learned to handle responsibility, developed resilience, and discovered their independence. Work wasn’t just an economic destination; it was a classroom for learning how to function in the world.
The tragedy highlighted by the report is that these crucial first rungs of the ladder have quietly splintered away. The modern labour market increasingly expects readiness before it is willing to teach it. This is precisely where higher education steps into the frame - and where our current strategy is failing.
For years, universities have obsessed over making students more “employable.” Yet, when employers talk about Gen Z entering the workplace today, they don’t just point to missing technical skills; they talk about young people arriving with profoundly low confidence and an unprecedented need for emotional support.
Britain may have a workforce participation problem, but India has a profound preparation problem. Our youth are caught in an endless loop of more coaching, more certifications, more postgraduate degrees, and a competitive exam system that builds multiple gap years and repeat attempts directly into its design.
Today, it feels as though we have become exceptionally skilled at helping students compete for jobs, while completely ignoring the human development required to do the job actually. The real question is whether we have given them the psychological maturity to know when they are finally ready to step beyond it.
The writer is an Education Strategist; Views presented are personal.
