Only 29 per cent of students prefer traditional degrees: Study

Chandigarh: One of India’s leading ed-tech firms, Schoolguru Eduserve – A TeamLease Company, today launched a detailed study highlighting the sentiments and preferences of students and employed learners towards the current college education system. Titled ‘The current learning landscape: Learner’s perspective’ the research reveals that only 29% of the college going students prefer the traditional degree curriculum that we have in our country. A majority of students, nearly 65.41% believe apprenticeship linked degrees to be more useful indicating the growing preference amongst students for courses that help them build a career. In fact, it was not only students, even employed learners echoed the need to re-look at our current college education system. Around 44.53% of the employed learners also felt apprenticeship linked degree to be more apt. Both the type of students, traditional learners (69.1%) as well as employed learners (49.81%) feel it can help them with better job prospects.

As per the report, both employed learners (66.83%) and traditional learners (82.6%) are worried about their job prospects in the near future. As a matter of fact, more than 53% of the employed learners and 48% of the traditional learners have undertaken at least one short certificate course in the last 2 years. While this phenomenon is common amongst students in the southern zone, employed learners in the western zone are more interested in short certificate courses than other zones. Another aspect that stood out was both the type of respondents echoed the need for corporates to incorporate up-skilling as a critical element indicating the growing acceptance of continuous learning by the stake holders.

Sharing his views on the findings, Mr Shantanu Rooj, Founder & CEO, Schoolguru Eduserve, said, “Employability is fast becoming the key outcome that learners are expecting from higher education. Be it traditional learners studying in higher education institutions or employed professionals enrolling for completion of their incomplete degrees, both are looking at learning additional skills that will help them fulfil their career aspirations.”

“Though this year saw multiple positive reforms like National Education Policy (NEP) and UGC’s announcement encouraging universities to introduce apprenticeship/internship embedded degree programs, our education system needs to be better aligned with the aspirations of our youth through universalisation of employability embedded courses.” added Mr. Rooj
As per the comprehensive survey significant learner behaviour was discovered - while course popularity was the driving force for course selection amongst employed learners (37%), it was personal interest that made youngsters opt a particular stream or course for learning (35%). Similarly the contrast was also visible in terms of financing, most of the youngsters were supported by their families (70%) whereas in the case of employed learners it was self-funded (78%).

“The current learning landscape: Learner’s perspective” from Schoolguru Eduserve Private Limited is a comprehensive survey analysing the sentiments of learners towards the education eco-system the survey was conducted across India and around 3905 learners participated in the same.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS
•       Majority of the learners (about 82.6% of the traditional learners and 66.8% of the employed learners) are worried about their career prospects post their graduation
•       82% of the Higher education learners believe that a Degree that embeds skill development would help them better in their career
•       Almost 50% of the current learners are working on their Plan-B; they have either enrolled or planning to enroll into a skilling program alongside their degree
•       Apprenticeship embedded degrees that provide the benefit of learning the skill while working on the job is the preferred choice of the students
•       Better career prospects (57% learners believe so) and the probability of a higher starting pay (33.8% learners believe so) are the important drivers for Apprenticeship embedded degree programs