ROLE OF DRAMA INTERVENTION IN TRANSFORMATION OF PROFESSIONAL COLLEGE STUDENTS IN ENHANCING EMPLOYABILITY

Abstract

In India, the problem of employability is paramount amongst students of SFPPEIs .In the past decade, a trend has been observed of that of degrading quality of student at the screening or entry level of professional degree courses. Even more they need to be proficient enough with superlative degrees of communication skills, systems oriented process driven applied knowledge, professional attitude and attributes.  The gaping gap becomes evident between student’s preparation, aspirations and Corporate demand of well-trained candidates as their prospective employees. The current focus of self- financed private professional educational institutes (SFPPEIs) in professional education is development of students in terms of knowledge and skills, as degree alone cannot become a guarantee for gaining employability. The Industry – Academia gaping gap can never be bridged without acquisition of soft skills which actually begin by working upon an individual’s experiential learning on self-confidence, self-esteem, self- efficacy and emotional intelligence.(Batra & Parimoo (2017)

Though Employability can be defined in contexts of society, organizational, Industrial and Individual, (Versloot, Glaude and Thijssen,1998). This article focuses on the individual level. There are several synonyms - core, key, generic, personal transferable skills, common, work or employment related skills –. Added to that, what compounds the sense of confusion is that ‘skills’ are often referred to as capabilities, competencies or attributes, levels or learning outcomes. The term Employability has no meaning without its core antecedents, such as self-confidence, self-esteem, emotional intelligence and self-efficacy. Since the classical approaches do not suffice. Drama Intervention as a novel tool is required to achieve the purpose of enhancing employability.