Nearly 75% of Indian colleges still not industry-ready: TeamLease report

Indian universities and colleges increasingly describe employability as a central goal of higher education. Yet a wide gap persists between that ambition and the outcomes students experience after graduation, according to a new report by TeamLease Edtech.

The report, From Degree Factories to Employability Hubs, found that nearly three-quarters of India’s higher education institutions are not industry-ready, and that fewer than one in five manage to place more than three-quarters of their graduates within six months of completing their degrees. The findings underscore the uneven progress of India’s education system as it struggles to align academic training with the demands of a rapidly changing labour market.

At the heart of the problem is curriculum relevance. Only 8.6% of institutions surveyed said their programmes were fully aligned with industry needs, while more than half acknowledged having no such alignment at all. Another 19% reported that alignment efforts were still in progress, suggesting that meaningful engagement with employers remains the exception rather than the rule.

The report also pointed to structural weaknesses that extend beyond coursework. Fewer than one-quarter of institutions involve industry professionals in classroom teaching, and more than 60% have yet to explore embedding industry-recognised certifications into their programmes. Alumni networks, often seen as a critical bridge between campuses and employers, remain largely underdeveloped, with just 5.44% of institutions reporting highly engaged alumni communities.

Experiential learning, widely regarded as essential to job readiness, is similarly uneven. Only about a quarter of institutions have integrated internships into their academic programmes in any structured manner, and fewer than one in ten offer students exposure to live industry projects. For many graduates, this leaves a gap between theoretical instruction and the practical skills employers increasingly expect.

Shantanu Rooj, the founder and chief executive of TeamLease Edtech, said the findings reveal a system caught between intent and execution. While employability is frequently invoked as a guiding principle, he said, it has yet to be embedded into how institutions design curricula, evaluate faculty, or build partnerships with employers.

“If employability is truly the goal,” Rooj said, “then curriculum co-creation with industry, mandatory internships, applied learning through live projects, and formal employer partnerships must become fundamental to how institutions function — not optional additions.”

The report also highlights limited industry presence within classrooms. Only a small fraction of institutions have adopted the “Professor of Practice” model across multiple programmes, leaving most students with limited exposure to current industry practices. This, the authors argue, further weakens the connection between academic learning and workplace realities.

The study was based on the responses from 1,071 institutions across public, private, and deemed universities, as well as autonomous and affiliated colleges.