Beyond the Classroom: Designing India's Education–Employment Bridge
Introduction: India's Missing Middle India's employment debate is increasingly defined by a paradox. The country is expanding higher education, producing more graduates across regions and communities, and creating new skilling and training programs - yet employers across sectors continue to complain that many young people are not ready for productive work. At the same time, millions of young people struggle to find stable employment or spend years preparing for competitive examinations because the alternatives available to them appear uncertain. The problem is often described as a shortage of skills. But that diagnosis is incomplete. India is not short of educated people, nor is it necessarily short of jobs in every sector. What is missing is a sufficiently strong institutional bridge between education and productive employment. That distinction is becoming more important as the structure of work changes. Recent evidence illustrates the scale of the disconnect. A HirePro rep...