The Minister said today the challenge before the industry

is availability of skilled manpower. According to NASSCOM, each year over three million graduates and post graduates are added to the Indian workforce, of whom only 25 per cent of technical graduates and 10-15 per cent of other graduates are considered employable. This demand-supply mismatch of skilled workforce is a big challenge along with lack of inclination among youths to join vocational courses. Therefore, integration of skills into higher education for making them relevant to learners is the key to addressing this mismatch and initiatives such as community colleges could help bridge the gap, he said. He said with the notification of NVEQF, vocational course have started in 40 secondary schools in Haryana on a pilot scale while West Bengal, Karnataka and Assam are ready to launch their pilots soon. Besides, eight other states have got their programmes approved for 2013-14. CBSE is also orienting private schools to accept the NVEQF to start vocational education programmes.