BANGALORE, INDIA: Globalisation and market forces are creating job opportunities across countries on a scale never seen before. However, there is also a widening skills gap. India is poised to reap benefits of the ‘demographic dividend’, but this begets the question, how can a country with a billion people be facing such a severe talent crunch?

Some of the contributing factors are the literacy levels (at 52 percent), high poverty levels (319 Million live below $1 per day), our wide rural-urban divide, and the uneven quality of education available — only 17 per cent of the relevant age group in India goes on to take up higher education.

Another cause for the skill gap lies in the quality of talent being churned out. Every year, India produces more than 2.5 million university graduates, of which 20 perceent are engineering majors. NASSCOM estimates that only 25 percent of these technical graduates and approximately 15 percent of other graduates are considered employable by the rapidly growing IT and ITeS companies.

NASSCOM also predicts that India’s IT sector will face a shortfall of half a million professionals by 2010, while a recent IDC report suggests India will experience a shortfall of 118,000 skilled IT networking professionals in 2008 alone.

Additionally, as businesses propose to double and treble their workforces and Indian companies strive to maintain their position in the global marketplace, it has become imperative to prepare and plan for a world-class, skilled, competent, and innovative workforce.

The current state of affairs presents a compelling case for private-public partnership through industry-academia alliances to enhance talent development amongst the youth at the grassroots level. NASSCOM’S IT Workforce Development (ITWD) program was specifically designed to keep the issues and concerns of the industry as well as the challenges of the academia in mind.

Moreover, many IT companies, are now partnering with engineering colleges and universities to build much-needed engagement between industry and academia, even creating universally accepted benchmarks like certifications and policy-level curriculum changes. Educational institutions can update the syllabus of professional academic courses to make them more industry relevant, with regular updates from professionals who have a deeper understanding of current business developments and technical standards.

The Cisco Networking Academy is one such initiative that partners with over 190 educational institutions in India delivering information and communication technology skills to improve career and economic opportunities amongst the youth in India. Initiatives like these have had a positive impact on people’s lives by encouraging career advancement, improving access to the Internet, supporting the growth of the ICT industry, and promoting sustainable economic development in the communities in which it operates.