Remember that moment when you were about to graduate or had just stepped out of college, only to come across job vacancy posts filled with terms you’d never even heard of? The disbelief that washed over you as you realized all those years of hard work might not be enough to land your dream job?

That frustration is all too familiar, especially for those of us who graduated in Nepal. We’ve all been there—wondering how, after four years of grinding away, we could still feel so unprepared.

I still remember the moment it hit me. I was so terrified of not landing a job that I actually paid a company to take me on as an intern, just so I could learn the skills needed to be hire-able after graduation. Talk about imposter syndrome!

According to Pradhan (2016), unemployment among university graduates in Nepal is nearly three times higher than that of youth without schooling. That should set off some serious alarm bells.

Even after four years of hard work, college alone can’t make you employable.

But here’s the thing—that’s how it’s supposed to be.

Let me explain why.

To understand that, we need to first understand how higher education, as a concept, is different from workforce development.

The Difference Between Higher Education and Workforce Development

In my perspective, higher education, such as college education, should be about three things: acquiring knowledge and values, developing critical thinking skills and learning how to apply what you’ve learned (or at least understanding where and how it can be applied).

Critical thinking is a crucial part of this education. It’s about learning to analyze and evaluate information by questioning assumptions, identifying biases, and considering various perspectives before drawing a conclusion. This ability empowers us to tackle problems with a deeper understanding rather than simply accepting established facts at face value. Such thinking is what actually leads to new discoveries and drives the evolution of human knowledge forward.

Ideally, college education embodies this approach within specific fields of study, such as medicine, literature, philosophy, engineering, and more. The community of students, lecturers, and researchers found in colleges and universities further enriches these objectives. A college is there to make you a disciple of a discipline. When you keep this in mind, the reason of why you go to a college will change for the better.

This is what higher education is all about.

On the flip side, landing a job requires you to master market-relevant tools and use them in ways that align with an organization’s expectations, ultimately creating business value. While the design and application of these tools might be based on the knowledge you acquire in college, their primary purpose is to meet the needs of a business.

This is what workforce development is all about.

In essence, workforce development isn’t a subset of college education—it’s a narrow extension of it.

If we shift the focus of colleges solely toward workforce development, we risk diminishing their broader potential and purpose. We might end up having semi-skilled people who would be able to land their first jobs, but would not be able to progress any further in their careers because they lack the necessary foundation in that field of study, to be able to do so. That’s why colleges should concentrate on and commit to delivering true education.

And for that to happen effectively in our nation, colleges need to be led by educators and academics, not businesspeople. But that’s a topic for another day.

If It’s Not the Colleges’ Responsibility to Train You for a Job, Is It the Responsibility of the Corporates?

Corporates are business entities established to earn profits by providing value to their customers through products or services. Skilled employees are crucial in helping businesses deliver this value, and in return, they are compensated for their contributions.

In this equation, training people to qualify for or excel in a job isn’t part of a company’s core business proposition. It’s a secondary need, necessary to support their primary objective. While training is an investment, it costs companies significant time, effort, and money.

That’s why many companies prefer to wait months for a pre-skilled candidate rather than train someone from scratch. Training is not only expensive but also risky—there’s always the chance that after all the training, the employee might leave, forcing the company to start the process all over again. This is why companies often hesitate to invest in workforce development, and honestly, you can’t blame them for it.

Well.. NOW WHAT!! WHO’S GONNA GET US A JJOOOOBBBBB???!!!!

The problem persists because we’re stuck thinking about who should be responsible for vocational training—colleges or companies?

What we really need is a new, independent entity that bridges the gap between colleges and companies. These entities would specialize in understanding the specific requirements of businesses and help job seekers get the right training with the right tools.

I call such entities professional universities. Such universities would not just help candidates become gradually fit for a job; they would also integrate them into a community of professionals offering the continuous and practical education needed for sustained career growth and excellence in their field of work. Professional universities would add significant value, particularly in Nepal, where many industries and skill levels are still developing.

KhanVersity aims to be one such institution.