From Education to Career: Including Conversion Rate in NIRF Will Boost Women's Workforce Participation and GDP

New Delhi: Despite significant progress in female literacy and higher education in India, women's workforce participation remains a concern.

According to Women Empowerment Principles (WEP), female literacy exceeds 77%, and participation in higher education has reached 48%. Yet, the Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) in 2023-24 is only 41.7%, far below the global average. 

This highlights a deep gap between education and employment.

A practical and effective solution is to include “conversion rate” – the rate at which education leads to jobs or entrepreneurship – as a key criterion in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) for ranking colleges and universities. 

Today, institutions boast about increasing female enrollment but neglect the fact relating to how many of them secure employment. This oversight undermines the potential of half the country's population.

According to WEP, only 20% of women graduates with excellent academic performance enter formal jobs or entrepreneurship. This indicates the issue is not merely qualification but the lack of a supportive social and institutional environment to transition women to the next career stage. It's a sad commentary on the direction of socioeconomic changes over the years. 

We can establish the through  colleges, offering career counseling, entrepreneurship training, and mentorship, they prepare women for professional life.

A specialized leadership course teaches women leadership and community-building skills, empowering them to uplift others. This boosts their confidence level and enables them to play impactful, long-term roles in the workforce.

While FLFPR has recently risen, much of it comes from self-employment or unpaid family labor, especially in the vast  rural hinterland of India. These jobs are unsustainable and don’t ensure economic independence. In urban areas, women’s share in entry-level jobs is 31%, but it drops to 13% in leadership roles. This gender disparity is a major obstacle to India’s economic ambitions of a Viksit Bharat.

Recent research suggests that eliminating the gender gap in employment could add upto $770 billion to India’s GDP, significantly advancing the goal of a $5 trillion economy.

It’s time to hold educational institutions accountable. Including conversion rate in NIRF rankings is a concrete and necessary step. This will push colleges and universities beyond academics to ensure students, especially women, reach employment, entrepreneurship, and leadership roles.

If the concerned authorities can become a reality, not just a slogan.

Thus, ensuring equal workforce participation for women is not just social justice but an essential part of India’s economic strategy. The journey starts where careers begin – educational institutions. Until conversion rates are measured and improved, India’s GDP engine will run at half its capacity.

(Writer Tripti Singhal Somani is CA by profession and views expressed here are of her own.)