# Nirmala Sitharaman says colleges give degrees but not job skills 2026-08-17T13:06:35+00:00 | Governance | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 1 independent outlet (2 source reports) Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said Indian colleges are not preparing students for jobs or entrepreneurship. In an interview with The Indian Express, she said most students graduate with a degree but lack the skills needed for employment or starting their own business. She contrasted this with developed countries, where technical universities and skill-based courses teach students how to use a skill and advance in it. Sitharaman said the current system produces youth who hold certificates but are not ready for the market. She called for an overhaul in mindset and structure of school and college education, adding that spending money alone will not fix the problem. She also declined to revisit student protests at Jantar Mantar, saying the focus should be on moving forward. ## Coverage - bazaar.businesstoday.in - bazaar.businesstoday.in (2) This story was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above. Tags: education, Nirmala Sitharaman, The Indian Express Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/nirmala-sitharaman-says-colleges-give-degrees-but-not-job-skills/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/nirmala-sitharaman-says-colleges-give-degrees-but-not-job-skills/#story-in-brief Review state: restored archive article, accurate at time of publication, not offered to search indexes. How this brief was made: an AI model read the reports linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. Stance labels are editorial classifications of how each outlet framed this story, assigned by the same model, not ratings of the outlets. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/