Make in India and the Future of Commerce Education: Developing Industry-Ready Skills for a Growing Economy

Abstract

Context: The ‘Make in India’ program was launched with an objective of making India a global design and manufacturing hub. This has been a paradigm shift in the economic and industrial landscape. This change requires a very skilled workforce and places tremendous pressure on higher education institutions, especially those offering commerce and business programs.

Objectives: The present review paper attempts to assess the present status of commerce education in India, find out the emerging skill requirements due to Make in India initiative and suggest frameworks for development of industry ready graduates. Methods: A descriptive review method was used to collect data from 14 peer-reviewed articles, government reports and policy documents published in the last 10 years.

Key Results: Analysis reveals a persistent disparity between theoretical commerce curricula and real-world industry requirements. Growing industries require sophisticated skills in digital finance, data analytics, global supply chain management and regulatory compliance. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is a great framework for multi-disciplinary and vocational integration but the implementation at grass-root level is patchy.

Conclusion: To support the growing economy of India, the commerce education needs to be shifted from rote learning to competency-based training. To future-proof commerce graduates, strong industry-academia linkages, revamping of syllabi to include FinTech and automation and mandatory practical internships are needed.