Problem Description & Solution Approach:
India has emerged as one of the Top 5 economies of the World. The distribution of this economic growth across the population remains skewed as India’s GDP per capita while improving yet continues to be below the desired levels. This is due to a large section of the Indian population being non-productive members of the economy.
The reason for the same can be found in certain statistics as highlighted below:
1. Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) till Class 8, Class 10, Class 12 in India is ~100%, ~80%, ~60% respectively i.e. ~40% of students do not even complete higher secondary education
2. ~80% of Indian graduates completing undergraduate degrees in colleges/universities are lacking skills to be employable
For India to leapfrog on GDP per capita, 10X jump is required in the number of employed Indian youth.
As per 2021 estimates, ~67% of Indian households’ annual income is less than INR 5 lacs i.e. less than INR 40,000/- per month per household. Assuming 2 working members per household, this translates into a monthly income of INR 20,000/- per month per individual. If you ask corporate India, there are multiple job opportunities in the salary bracket of INR 25,000 to INR 75,000 per month per individual provided individuals can deliver as per the expectations of the job.
The key challenge reported by Corporate India related to the employability of individuals is more non-technical skills than technical skills like problem-solving skills, first principals thinking, time management, collaborating within a team, discipline & punctuality, creative & critical thinking, proactive thinking & action, empathy, risk management, etc. Most of these skills are learnt through experiences i.e. Experiential Learning but there is currently, no system that helps quantify such Experiential Learning skills in an individual. Our education system disproportionately emphasizes on evaluation & scoring of academic knowledge & application of technical skills.
As a result, individuals with good academic profiles more often fail to impress on Experiential Learning dimension and at the same time, individuals with good Experiential Learning profile, quite often fail to get a shortlist from Corporate India. A few institutes like IITs/IIMs have built great global reputation for themselves as a high number of their students display both academic brilliance & experiential learning as well as a hunger for continuous improvement & self-learning, which is why they are the preferred hunting grounds for most of the companies in India & abroad.
How to replicate this for the Indian population at mass?
Solution & Approach
The first step is to bring focus onto the disproportionate Experiential Learning in our education system from K12 schools to Higher Education Institutes keeping future employability in mind. There needs to be opportunities for individuals to indulge in affordable, low-cost/zero-cost project-led learning opportunities. There needs to be freedom to experiment & self-learn rather than pursue first-time-right results every time. There needs to be flexibility in the learning schedules & rigor to safeguard the joy of learning. Personalized mentorship should be available to learners for them to get guidance to iterate on their learning projects/assignments & pursue excellence through continuous improvement.
The second step is to make it easy & convenient for companies to discover truly skilled individuals for their organization’s talent needs. Instead of academic grades & scores, they should be able to use job-skills-related requirements to identify suitable individuals & review their projects/assignments to decide the quality of the candidate. This will help the company be more productive by reducing the number of interviews & allowing learners to showcase their skills in a safe environment. Imagine all the projects/assignments of any learner in their pursuit of Experiential Learning are available in the form of a Digital Video Profile to any prospective employer for them to use the same to identify suitable candidates.
Finally, the new India does not need just more job-seekers but also, job-creators i.e. innovators, and entrepreneurs. We need to inculcate a culture towards enabling every individual to identify their IKIGAI sooner in life. For the same, every individual needs to get the most holistic learning & development exposure to identify their true calling. Very often people make choices basis blind spots about themselves & any guidance to enable an individual to explore all aspects of their personality & talent before committing to their life & career choices will help increase the number of creators in the country.
Technology/innovation
KidEx has built the technology platform to translate the above-mentioned solution ideas into reality. KidEx platform enables every individual to indulge in project-led learning across multiple aspects ranging from 21st-century skills to extra-curriculars to co-curriculars to life skills to Indian culture etc. Every project comes with suitable reference videos to let the learner self-learn before attempting the project/assignment. Asynchronous mentorship is available to every individual to receive feedback/guidance from a subject-matter expert directly on the app/website. Learners can re-attempt the projects/assignments to improve their learning levels in their pursuit of excellence. All projects/assignments completed by the learner become part of the individual’s digital portfolio for them to showcase their skills if they want. Learners have the right to hide/make visible their profile details as they deem appropriate. Companies get access to individual profiles easily to review their skills & decide whether to right-swipe them to shortlist for an interview or not. The entire platform is quality-controlled through AI tools to ensure the highest quality experience for all stakeholders.
The platform has been awarded by Google, MEITY, TiE as one of the most unique, globally disruptive EdTech solutions from India for the World.
Achievements to-date
The platform has been used by 5,000+ schools, 100+ colleges, 25+ companies to date & has served 4,00,000+ learners across different age groups. Some of the notable users of the platform include NITI Aayog Atal Innovation Mission, ISRO, Sulabh International Organization, IIT Kharagpur Technology Alumni Association, IIM Sirmaur, Persistent Foundation, Education Department, Dumka District, Govt. of Jharkhand etc. The platform has consistently received Net Promoter Score of 90%+ from users & 95%+ learners have reported improvement in learning levels within 3 months of using the platform. Colleges have reported 100% improvement in job selection interview conversions as well as 25% increase in new companies onboarded for campus placements. Companies have reported min 50% reduction in the number of interviews taken for every successful hire.
Scale of Opportunity
To make a real difference on ground in India, partner with Government bodies & departments to take the platform to all schools & colleges in the country. Work with private players to achieve financial sustainability as well as continue to lead the innovation journey. In 5 to 7 years, we would want to touch the lives of 10% of Indian population. For more details, visit www.kid-ex.com and/or www.masternaukri.com.
WGF leaders providing oversight:
Dr. Kannan Moudgalya, Ratan Agarwal
Call To Action
Education being one of the focus areas of WHEELS, here is a request to WHEELS Global Foundation members and IIT Alumni to come forward and use their network to help scale the Education solutions so it can achieve its goals.
This could be in the form of spreading the awareness and usage of the solution catalyzing the network of educational institutions, identifying sources of value that may be integrated with KidEx to enhance the richness of its contents or any other means. With the upliftment of the education level of the students, in collaboration with KidEx, we can ensure knowledge dissemination and communication among the students based in the remotest part of the country.
