Youth Graduate Readiness

In table 1, we see there are 1,407 campuses and colleges of different universities and following table 2, we find out that in one year 3,18,753 students enrolled in bachelor level in Nepal. This number does not take into account students studying abroad. Besides Australia, the USA, and European countries, a large number of students go to India to pursue an undergraduate in addition to many other countries. Despite a hundred thousand students graduating in a year, on the one hand, the industry is finding challenging to recruit qualified human resources, and other hand there are huge unemployment and underemployment. The situation becomes more worsen with the increase in inefficient human resources with time.

After working for youth empowerment and recruitment for more than a decade, the founder of BITS Ladder has directly engaged with more than 50 thousand Nepalese youth across the country as well as with the Nepalese youth studying in India and abroad, states that there is an industry-academia gap in the country. The need for the industry is very dynamic, however, the curriculum of the school/university education is very static. After analyzing the hiring process of different organizations, it was evident that employers evaluate the candidates in three dimensions- knowledge, skill, and mindset. The success of an employee to establish themselves is also depends highly on the mindset in addition to knowledge and skills. However, there is very limited opportunity for young graduates as well as young professionals to prepare themselves accordingly.

For the readiness of the youth in the job market BITS Ladder come up with the following short term engagement approach:

• Industry immersion to understand the industrial practices
• Skill-based training for shaping the skills and technical readiness
• Engagement in talk program, seminar, and conferences to shape the theoretical learnings
• Engagement in workshops to enhance skills
• Engagement in competition to exercise their knowledge and skills