🎓 Degrees Without Destinations? Rethinking Employability in Indian Higher Education (ICC Blog # 100)

NAAC & NIRF Ranking HEIs but not Employment

Yesterday, I attended the orientation session for my daughter’s undergraduate program at one of Hyderabad’s most reputable colleges. With a NAAC Grade A accreditation, autonomous status under Osmania University, and a spot in the 101–150 band of NIRF’s 2024 rankings, the institution checks every regulatory box. Curiously, these accolades weren’t the driving force behind our decision. As someone immersed in student career guidance and deeply attuned to developments in India’s higher education and formal employment ecosystem, I’ve learned to look beyond surface-level indicators.

And yet, I was genuinely impressed by the quality of the orientation itself—well-organised, articulate, and welcoming. But one glaring omission stayed with me: not once was employability or career transition discussed. No mention of placement records, industry linkages, or vision for equipping this new cohort for life beyond the campus. I considered raising the issue during the Q&A—but chose instead to reflect more deeply before offering critique.

Why This Silence on Employment?

It’s not an isolated oversight. None of the apex bodies that govern Indian higher education—UGC, NAAC, NIRF, or even the Ministry of Education itself—treat employability as a central outcome.

Let’s briefly examine their roles.

UGC, as the statutory authority under the Ministry of Education, regulates standards, grants recognition, and disburses funding to universities.

NAAC, an autonomous agency of the UGC, assesses and accredits HEIs on academic, infrastructural, and institutional criteria—but without a distinct lens on student career outcomes.

NIRF, launched by the Ministry of Education in 2015, ranks HEIs based on teaching, research, inclusivity, and perception. It does include “Graduation Outcomes,” which lightly touches on placements, but with limited transparency and comparability.

The Ministry of Education, through its higher education department, sets policies and drives reforms. Yet even here, employment metrics are sidelined as peripheral concerns rather than core mandates.

When Outcomes Aren’t Measured, They’re Ignored

This reveals a significant structural gap: what isn’t measured, isn’t managed. While our frameworks meticulously tally publications, classrooms, and credit hours, they largely ignore what happens to students after graduation.

Of the major regulatory agencies—UGC, NAAC, NIRF, AISHE—only one gestures toward employment. Even then, data quality, standardisation, and public accessibility remain inconsistent and opaque.

NAAC’s accreditation, in particular, lacks an employability-focused criterion. While it rightly emphasises teaching quality, governance, and values, it fails to follow students’ journeys beyond degrees. This is worrying when learners and their families increasingly judge educational value by career and life readiness.

Further complicating the landscape is the overlap and fragmentation between NAAC and NIRF. Both are tasked with quality assurance, yet they use different indicators and language, creating confusion and bloated bureaucracy without a unified focus on student futures.

A System of Information Asymmetry in Higher Education

Each year, over 1 crore graduates emerge from India’s HEIs. Many carry hope. Some carry offer letters. But far too many enter the job market disillusioned and underprepared. Our institutions proudly display NAAC certificates on their walls, but the walls often fail to open doors.

For parents and students—the very people funding and participating in the system—the current rating structures are alienating, not empowering. The data lives in inaccessible reports and jargon-heavy documentation. Most families have little visibility into real-world outcomes like career pathways, alumni networks, or placement opportunities.

This creates an ecosystem of information asymmetry, where institutions hold the data, regulators overlook critical outcomes, and consumers are left navigating on instinct, anecdote, or brand image.

So Who Bears the Responsibility?

Students alone should not shoulder the blame for an employment landscape they never shaped. Institutions must be held accountable not just for academics but for outcomes. Regulators must reflect this mandate. And policymakers must stop treating employability as a peripheral metric. If an institution excels in research but cannot speak confidently about the destinations of its graduates, one must ask—what exactly is being ranked?

Where We Must Refocus

1. Include Employability in Accreditation. NAAC must introduce a standalone criterion measuring placement performance, skill alignment, internships, and alumni career data.

2. Reorient UGC’s Mandate   Redefine institutional success to include post-graduation transitions—jobs, entrepreneurship, or higher studies—as core responsibilities.

3. Simplify Public Metrics: Create user-friendly dashboards and summaries from NAAC, NIRF, and AISHE data, tailored for families and students.

4. Integrate Fragmented Systems Harmonise the roles and indicators of NAAC, NIRF, and UGC under a unified, transparent, outcome-driven framework.

   
   

India’s much-vaunted demographic dividend depends not only on access to higher education, but on its ability to deliver livelihoods and dignity. That won’t happen by measuring more of the same. It will happen when we measure what truly matters. Because in the end, degrees should open doors, not decorate shelves.