As India pushes colleges to better prepare students for jobs, Gujarat has quietly started using a new tool called GRADE. This Made-in-India test—short for Global Review, Assessment and Determination of Employability was created to help students understand how ready they are for the workplace. Even though it was developed in India, it can be useful for students anywhere in the world.
The Gujarat Knowledge Society, part of the state’s education department, has teamed up with a consulting firm called TriChambers to carry out the test. So far, it claims that over 6,000 final-year students from more than 30 colleges and polytechnics have taken it.
Why does this matter now?
This comes at a time when national bodies like the AICTE and UGC are telling colleges to offer more real-world and industry-focused learning. For example, internships are now a must for engineering and diploma students. And under the National Education Policy 2020, colleges are being asked to include job-related skills in their courses.
In this setting, GRADE is trying to solve an important problem: how students can figure out if they are ready for work. “There’s a lot of talk about what employers want, but students rarely hear that feedback clearly,” said Shivani Bagdai, founder of TriChambers. “GRADE helps make that feedback more visible and useful for them.”
Testing skills that don’t show up on a report card
GRADE claims that it doesn’t test how much you know from books. Instead, it looks at 11 important soft skills—like communication, thinking ability, work attitude and motivation. Each student gets a personal report showing how they did compared to others and where they can improve.
Colleges also get reports, which they can use to plan better training and job placement help. Students attend workshops after the test to understand their results and get advice.
“GRADE isn’t about passing or failing,” said Aditya Awasthi, one of its creators. “It’s meant to help students think deeply about the kind of professionals they want to become.”
Tackling a big challenge
The need for such tools is clear. The India Skills Report 2025 says only about 50% of graduates in India are ready for jobs. Many companies say they struggle to find candidates with good communication or people skills.
Some educators welcome Gujarat’s effort. “Getting a job is just one step. Building a career takes time, and GRADE gives students tools to help with that,” said Isha Kakkad, an education consultant with the Eight Goals One Foundation.
Still a work in progress
Others are more cautious. “It’s a good start, but just taking a test won’t change much unless students and colleges follow up on it,” said a training officer involved in the project, who asked not to be named. “Also, soft skills aren’t always easy to measure or rank.”
The makers of GRADE agree—it’s not meant to judge students, but to help them grow.
Even if GRADE doesn’t expand across India right away, Gujarat’s experiment shows that states are trying new ways to tackle the big issue of unemployability. With so many young graduates struggling to find work, efforts like this could make a real difference.