‘Skills are becoming perishable’: Dr Smitha Ranganathan on the future of lifelong learning

India’s upskilling economy is booming. Courses are multiplying, enrolments are climbing and credentials are piling up across LinkedIn profiles at breakneck speed. But beneath the noise sits a difficult question: are professionals actually becoming better at their jobs, or simply better at collecting certificates?

That is the tension Dr Smitha Ranganathan, Associate Professor of Digital Strategy and Compassionate Marketing at BITS Pilani Work Integrated Learning Programmes, keeps returning to during her interaction with People Matters.

For Ranganathan, India’s learning revolution is no longer about access alone. That battle, she suggests, is largely being won. The bigger challenge now is whether large-scale learning systems are actually producing sharper thinkers, stronger leaders and more adaptable professionals.

“India’s upskilling push is accelerating. But unless scale is matched with meaningful outcomes, we risk expanding access without expanding capability,” she says.

It is a line that neatly captures the paradox shaping India’s modern workforce economy. Millions want to learn. Thousands of programmes promise transformation. Yet employers continue to complain about skill gaps, weak application and low workplace readiness.

Ranganathan believes the problem starts when learning becomes transactional.

“When access expands, enrolments rise, credentials multiply, yet capability remains unchanged,” she says. “This risk is subtle but serious, particularly when learning becomes performative rather than transformative.”

The Monday morning test

One of the more striking ideas in the conversation is Ranganathan’s insistence that the value of modern education is tested almost instantly.

“For working professionals, the value of education is tested almost immediately. A concept introduced over the weekend must hold up in a Monday review meeting,” she says.

That framing changes how success should be measured.

Instead of focusing on completion rates or programme participation, she argues organisations and institutions should ask tougher questions:

• Has the learner developed stronger judgement?
• Can they connect ideas across functions?
• Are they influencing decisions more effectively?
• Are they better at navigating ambiguity?
• Has workplace performance meaningfully improved?

“These are harder to measure than completion rates but far more meaningful,” she says.

The observation lands at a time when companies across sectors are pouring money into AI training, leadership programmes and digital capability building, while simultaneously questioning whether those investments are producing measurable business outcomes.

Why India’s learners cannot ‘pause life’ to study

India’s upskilling story also looks very different from older models of higher education.

The traditional formula was simple: pause work, study full time, graduate, then restart your career.

That model is increasingly collapsing.

“I want to grow, but I cannot step away from my job, my family, or my responsibilities,” Ranganathan says, describing what she calls the defining reality of India’s modern learner.

She paints a picture that feels immediately recognisable across corporate India:

• A plant engineer in Pune
• A banking professional in Jaipur
• A technology manager in Hyderabad
• A team lead in Bengaluru transitioning into leadership

“These learners are not waiting to begin, they are already in motion,” she says.

For them, education cannot function as a temporary detour. It has to fit into real life, layered between meetings, deadlines, family obligations and career uncertainty.

That, according to Ranganathan, is why work-integrated learning models are gaining momentum.

“These models recognize that education and employment are no longer separate phases but overlapping realities,” she says.

Her argument is straightforward. When learning happens alongside work, theory is tested immediately. Feedback becomes contextual. Application becomes unavoidable.

“In effect, the workplace becomes a live laboratory where theory meets consequence.”

The age of perishable skills

Perhaps the most important idea in the discussion is Ranganathan’s warning that skills themselves are now decaying faster than before.

“The old world connect between education and work is breaking down,” she says. “A single degree can no longer sustain a full career as industries evolve and roles are continuously redefined, skills are becoming perishable.”

That phrase, “skills are becoming perishable”, captures a broader shift now visible across industries shaped by automation, AI and rapid technological change.

The shelf life of knowledge is shrinking.

What worked five years ago may already be obsolete. In some sectors, what worked last year may already be outdated.

Yet ambition, she notes, has not slowed down.

“While skills decay faster, ambition does not. The desire for relevance, mobility, and meaningful work remains constant.”

This tension is driving the explosion in lifelong learning, particularly across:

• Artificial intelligence
• Data analytics
• Digital transformation
• Leadership capability
• Cross-functional management skills

But Ranganathan warns that scaling programmes alone is not enough.

“The real question is whether we are designing that scale to deliver outcomes that matter.”

Beyond return on investment

Ranganathan also challenges the way companies think about educational ROI.

Most corporate conversations around learning focus on measurable returns: promotions, salary hikes, retention or productivity.

She believes that view is too narrow.

“The impact of learning does not stop with the individual, it spreads,” she says.

A better-trained manager improves team decisions. A digitally fluent professional accelerates transformation. A stronger leader shapes culture and performance simultaneously.

She describes this wider impact as “return on influence”.

“It shifts the conversation from private gain to collective capability.”

That idea becomes particularly relevant as businesses increasingly treat workforce capability as a competitive advantage rather than simply an HR function.

India’s upskilling challenge enters a new phase

India’s demographic advantage has long been positioned as an economic strength. But Ranganathan argues that advantage only matters if the workforce remains adaptable.

“India stands at a critical juncture wherein our demographic advantage will translate into economic strength only if its workforce is equipped with relevant, adaptable, and applied capabilities,” she says.

For her, the future lies in balancing two goals that are often treated as opposites:

• Expanding access at scale
• Maintaining depth and quality of learning

She argues the country must move beyond a simplistic debate between scale and excellence.

“The future lies in integrating both building systems that expand access without diluting depth and align with industry without becoming narrowly transactional.”

In the end, Ranganathan keeps returning to one core idea: participation alone is not success.

“Success must be measured not just by how many learners enter the system, but by what they are able to do once they emerge from it.”

That may ultimately become the defining question for India’s upskilling economy.

Not how many people learned.

But whether the learning changed anything at all.