NEW DELHI: The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has partnered with Wheebox -- global online Skill Assessment Company -- to improve the skills of Indian students and increase their job prospects.

Under this association, Wheebox will be conducting a Wheebox employability skill test aiming to give all aspirants a snapshot of their capability around Numerical aptitude, Problem solving, English, Computing Skills and Psychometric Traits.

"AICTE's strategic association with Wheebox, will enable candidates from technical and business school to test their employability skills, in a standardised way by using Wheebox Employability Skill Test," AICTE Chairman Anil Dattatraya said in a statement on Friday.

"The test will also enable the institute to identify candidates and prepare development plan for improving employability much ahead of placement season," he added.

Stressing the importance of the partnership, Dattatraya said: "Standardising technical education and improving employability has been AICTE's endeavour."

According to India skills report 2016, only 39 per cent of students were employable presenting a dismal picture of Indian youth potential in India. These findings result in large mismatch between students and their job readiness.

The sectors facing acute manpower shortage include IT, BFSI, Pharma, Healthcare, Infrastructure, Retail, Auto and Consumer durables, amongst others.

"There seems to be a significant skill gap in the country with above 60 per cent of students unemployable highlighting urgent need of revamping the education. We need to prepare the students with job readiness," said the Wheebox CEO, Nirmal Singh.

According to him, this partnership will help the engineering and MBA Schools in India to take pre-emptive measures to improve various employability skills and make students job ready before they start applying for jobs.

"With a course curriculum, that is yet to be calibrated with the needs of employers it gets difficult for the students to understand how ready they are and also which improvement areas they need to cover," he said.

According to Assocham study, India is producing sub-par graduates who are largely un-employable resulting in these pass-outs earning less than Rs 10,000 a month.

"With our association with AICTE, we are preparing students to identify their job readiness which would help the industry in talent matchmaking," Singh said.

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