Sridhar Vembu, co-founder and Chief Scientist of Zoho Corporation, recently made headlines across the country by backing a growing trend among young people abroad who are skipping college and going straight to work. In a public message, he said that smart students are skipping standard college routes in some parts of the world, especially in the US, and instead choosing to start working early. Vembu said that this change was a big one in the culture and that it showed how people’s views on schooling, work, and freedom were changing.
He said that this trend gives young people the tools they need to stand on their own without going into huge amounts of debt to get a degree. He said that companies who are looking to the future are already backing this change by giving people chances based on their skills and talents instead of their official schooling.
Zoho gets rid of the requirement for a degree and puts skills ahead of certificates.
Vembu talked about how his company hires people and said that Zoho no longer requires a college degree for any of its jobs. He said that if a boss writes a job description that says you need a degree, the HR staff will step in and take that out. He said that many of the team members at Zoho’s Tenkasi office are as young as 19, and that the company values their energy, ability, and commitment more than their school records.
Zoho has always been committed to hiring people based on their skills, and this strategy shows that. Vembu said that in today’s world of fast-changing technology, skills, real knowledge, and imagination are much more important than degrees. He thinks that this kind of method gives many bright people chances they might not have had otherwise because of problems in school or money.
Indian parents, please think again about the college at any cost mentality.In his message, Vembu spoke directly to parents and guardians in India who were schooled. He told them to think again about the usual focus on degrees and to give their kids the freedom to explore job options based on their interests, skills and potential, not just their official education. He said that making every kid go to college could put them in a lot of debt and not guarantee their success or happiness. People’s skill, desire to learn and ability to work hard are the real indicators of their potential, according to him. Level degrees don’t always measure these things. He thinks that this will make people care less about their grades and more about skills and ideas that work in the real world.
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As education debates heat up, reactions vary.
A lot of people from all over the country have answered what Vembu said. Some of the ways people could get a job are through coding bootcamps, trade school, self-study, starting your own business and learning on the job.
Critics, on the other hand, warn against completely ignoring the importance of higher education. Some parents and teachers say that college is more than just getting a degree; it gives students a better intellectual base, the chance to think critically, make friends and grow as people. They are afraid that encouraging people to drop out of college might not give these things enough weight and force students to make job choices before they are fully grown.
Vembu’s view gives us a new way to think about what success can mean in the 21st century, as the way we talk about going to school and getting a job changes. In the coming months, there will likely be more discussion about whether skills-first hiring can really change the way India’s education system leads to jobs and whether other companies will follow Zoho’s lead.
