Professional Education and Employability

Dr. D. Mukhopadhyay
Professional education is the education that  is  imparted by a particular person to a group of students attributed with  orientation and intelligence for  pursuing higher studies in  a Profession i.e. a particular avenue of educational discipline. At  this juncture, it is a point of discussion and  it is   imperative  to throw some light  over the meaning, scope  and significance of meaning of a Profession. A Profession is  a  particular branch of educational discipline  that offers specialized  knowledge resource of extensive and comprehensive  knowledge along with adequate practical training for a certain number of years in a particular branch of educative discipline . Professions are   particular discipline oriented and discipline based. For instance, Engineering Profession is based on  Science, Legal Profession is based on Law, Chartered Accountancy, Cost and Management Accountancy and Company Secretariship Professions are based on Commerce Education, Medical Profession is based on again Science and mainly bio-science oriented  education based. A certain degree of merit and talent  is the prerequisite to take up and pursue a particular Profession. A Person is  recognized to become a professional in a particular branch of education when the concerned person  is said to have acquired a vast theoretical education and knowledge and  obtained rigorous practical training in that  branch of education. For instance, a doctor needs to undergo housestaffship after four years of  rigorous education in medical colleges and hospitals,  an engineering student is to obtain necessary training  during the  regular course of studies, a Chartered Accountant(CA) is to undergo three and a half years of  audit assistantship in order to obtain the membership of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) , a Cost and Management Accountant (CMA) is to undergo three years of practical training in industry before obtaining membership  of the Institute of Cost Accountants of India (ICAI). There are many more professional courses in India which are employment oriented and generates employability of the persons who pursue that professional course and obtain the Professional Degrees.  Moreover, a Professional is entitled to  have private practice   in the profession in which it earned proficiency , comprehensive knowledge and expertise and therefore  professional  does not depend on only  employment  as  career. A Professional also generates employment for others.
The higher education system of India   is the third largest  education delivery system in the world. First is the USA and next comes China. The governing body of Indian higher education is the University Grants Commission (UGC) constituted under the University Grants Commission Act, 1956. Again a particular Profession is regulated and controlled in terms of standards, code of conduct and ethical objectivity by another statutory body. For instance, Bar Council of  India (BCI)controls the Legal Profession, Medical Council of India(MCI) regulates and  controls the Medical Profession, the Institute of Cost Accountants of India(ICAI) controls and regulates the Cost and Management  Accountancy Profession in India, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India(ICAI) controls and regulate the  Chartered Accountancy Profession  in India, the Institute of Company Secretaries of India(ICSI) regulates and manages the  Profession of Company Secretaries  in India and so on.
Besides the professional institutes, there are more than 700 Degree awarding Universities and more than 36,000 university affiliated colleges in India and more than 20 million students are enrolled in these academic institutions. Let us take a rough statistics  of demographic profile in terms of stream wise allocation and admission of such students.  About 38% students are   admitted in Arts and Humanities stream,  18 %  students are studying Science, 18% students are enrolled in the discipline of Commerce and Management and about 18% students are studying Engineering and Technology and remaining 8% students are in other disciplines like Fine Arts and other vocational  domain of education.  For obtaining an employment in any sector of the economy, it is a must  for a candidate to  have  employable behaviour, attitudes and attributes and all these are   trained  by a particular profession.
A  Profession is meant for a career in a specific branch of  studies as it has been mentioned  earlier  and for example Doctors, Accountants, Engineers, Lawyers, and many more. But it not possible for everybody  to become a specified Professional due to  various reasons and one of them  is financial problem.  But without practical skill, hardly any employment is available for anybody.  It is difficult to  provide employment to the students who pursue pure Arts because pure Arts is not directly related with commercial operation of an organization. Now it is the need of the hour to  initiate and offer  short term skill development programmes  to those who cannot afford to become a full ledged Professional. Government of India is very serious  about this issue. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India ICAI) and the Institute of Cost Accountants of India(ICAI) do provide CAT (Certified/Certificate in Accounting Technicians) course which  is quite helpful   for the students of  Arts , Commerce and Management Disciplines to pursue these short term programme and earn employability in the commercial organizations. CAT programmes of both the Institutes is of low cost involvement and this course is of  one year  duration  and even after having CAT, if the candidates  desire, they  can enroll for the main courses of these Institutes and  become a  full-fledged Finance Professionals.
A Professional  is  attributed with competency to handle a particular problem and offer an optimum solution to such problem. A teacher is also professional in general sense since  they have proficiency and competency to handle social problems of man making. A teacher is attributed with  pedagogical knowledge in addition to  specialized knowledge  in a particular branch of studies. The purpose of this write up  is to bring to the notice of the decision makers that more and more professional institutes need to be promoted and general skill development scopes and avenue  should be given to every student  irrespective of the discipline it chooses to pursue higher studies. India is economically backward because majority of graduates can hardly take part in economic development of the country.  Majority of unemployable youth depend on the government jobs because in most of the government jobs only general awareness   except  in certain  cases is necessary. In government jobs, there is hardly any accountability for the work responsibility and in bureaucratic system, it takes lot of time to settle any issue due to various reasons of course.
Students of many  States in India are even not aware of different kind of Professional Courses which  are available in the country. Majority of the students knows only university administered Arts, Commerce and Science Degrees both at Bachelor and Master Levels and maximum Ph.D. in a particular branch. Ph.D. is meant for them who are aspirants of teaching jobs in college and universities. But college and universities cannot provide employment to every Ph.D. or Master Degree  holders   due to inherent limitations. Therefore, it is the industries and corporates who can provide mass employment provided the candidates are attributed with professional skill, competence and expertise.  A Professional can meet the challenges of day to  economic and commercial organizations and they can help in wealth creation.  Whether it  is public sector or private sector  based organization, nature of challenges and  socio-economic problems are almost the  same. Thus India today should concentrate on  more and more professional education curricula and motivate young unemployable graduates to take up a particular profession as his career in accordance with its ability and interest.
(The  author is  Professor of Management, School of Business, Faculty of Management, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra, Jammu & Kashmir.)
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