The Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2025 reports an unemployment rate of 3.1% among people aged 15 years and above. The rate was 9.9% for those aged 15-29 years, 11.2% for graduates and 10% for people with postgraduate education or above. It also found that 5% of people aged 15-29 years had received formal vocational or technical training. The question to ask is: How can universities make the education-to-work journey seamless and more productive for students?

A student may study economics in a district college while a nearby food-processing company looks for people who can manage data, accounts, or supply chains — both in the same town and yet far apart. How to create a practical bridge between them? Under the National Education Policy 2020, higher education has gained greater flexibility, and the University Grants Commission’s 2025 guidelines allow eligible institutions to offer an Apprenticeship Embedded Degree Programme (AEDP) in undergraduate disciplines. The immediate task is to turn this opportunity into dependable partnerships among colleges, universities and employers.

The UGC guidelines provide for curriculum co-design, workplace training, academic credit, and assessment shared by the........

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