1/ We have been very running a skills training program in one of our rural centers for the past 2 months, with the goal of hiring people who do well in it.

We have not required a college degree to enroll but most people who show up are people with degrees and no jobs.

2/ What is surprising is the number of fancy sounding degrees such as "MBA in HR" we see.

One person with that degree dropped out of training after 3 days because he said "I want a job relevant to my degree". He didn't even want to try.

3/ His mother - having spent her savings on the MBA in HR degree for her son - approached us again because she wants him to get a job and she cannot understand why he dropped out.

These degrees are doing active damage, not just waste time and money.

4/ What India needs are maker jobs, not paper jobs.

The investment made to create that MBA in HR program should have built a factory instead.

We need apprenticeship programs, not fancy degrees.

This has to start in rural India first because there is vast surplus labour here.