Employability Skills

Textbook for Class XII

 ISBN 978-93-5292-270-3

First Edition ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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 Foreword

The National Curriculum Framework–2005 (NCF–2005) recommends

bringing work and education into the domain of the curricular, infusing
it in all areas of learning while giving it an identity of its own at relevant
stages. It explains that work transforms knowledge into experience and
generates important personal and social values such as self-reliance,
creativity and cooperation. Through work, one learns to find one’s place
in society. It is an educational activity with an inherent potential for
inclusion. Therefore, an experience of involvement in productive work
in an educational setting will make one appreciate the worth of social
life and what is valued and appreciated in the society. Work involves
interaction with material or other people (mostly both), thus, creating
a deeper comprehension and increased practical knowledge of natural
substances and social relationships.
Through work and education, school knowledge can be easily linked
to learners’ life outside the school. This also makes a departure from
the legacy of bookish learning and bridges the gap between the school,
home, community and workplace. The NCF–2005 also emphasises on
Vocational Education and Training (VET) for all those children, who wish
to acquire additional skills and/or seek livelihood through vocational
education after either discontinuing or completing their school education.
VET is expected to provide a ‘preferred and dignified’ choice rather than
a terminal or ‘last-resort’ option.
As a follow-up of this, NCERT has attempted to infuse work across
subject areas and also contributed in the development of the National
Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) for the country, which was
notified on 27 December 2013. It is a quality assurance framework that
organises all qualifications, according to levels of knowledge, skills and
attitude. These levels, graded from one to ten, are defined in terms of
learning outcomes, which the learner must possess regardless of whether
they are obtained through formal, non-formal or informal learning.
The NSQF sets common principles and guidelines for a nationally
recognised qualification system covering schools, vocational education
and training institutions, technical education institutions, colleges
and universities.
It is under this backdrop that Pandit Sunderlal Sharma Central
Institute of Vocational Education (PSSCIVE), Bhopal, a constituent of

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 NCERT, has developed learning outcomes based modular curricula
for vocational subjects from Classes IX to XII. This has been developed
under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Vocationalisation of Secondary
and Higher Secondary Education of the Ministry of Human Resource
Development.
This textbook takes care of generic skills embedded in various job roles
in a comprehensive manner and also provides more opportunities and
scope for students to engage with these common and necessary skills,
such as communication, critical thinking and decision making in different
situations pertaining to different job roles.
I acknowledge the contribution of the development team, reviewers
and all institutions and organisations, which have supported in the
development of this textbook.
NCERT would welcome suggestions from students, teachers and
parents, which would help us to further improve the quality of the material
in subsequent editions.

Hrushikesh Senapaty
Director
New Delhi National Council of Educational
June 2018 Research and Training

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 About the Textbook

Employability skills can be defined as soft skills, which employers look

for in a potential employee. These are the skills that equip employees
to carry out their responsibilities to the best of their abilities, ensuring
client satisfaction. For example, the ability to explain what someone
means in a clear and concise way through written and spoken means
helps in fostering better relationship with the client or customer.
Similarly, handling stress that comes with deadlines for completing
a work or target and ensuring that a person meets the deadlines can
be done through effective self-management training. It can also be
done by working cordially with other people from different disciplines,
backgrounds and expertise to accomplish a task or goal.
In today’s digital age, employers expect that employees are able to make
use of elementary functions of information and communication technology
to retrieve, access, store, produce, present and exchange information in
collaborative networks using the Internet.
Students need to develop entrepreneurial skills so that they can
develop necessary knowledge and skills to start their own businesses,
thus, becoming ‘job creators’ rather than ‘job seekers’. Potential employees
need to develop green skills, which are technical skills, knowledge, values
and attitudes needed in the workforce to develop and support sustainable
social, economic and environmental outcomes in business, industry and
community. Thus, as a student, one is expected to acquire a range of
skills so that the person can meet the skill demands of the organisation
that one would be working for or to set up and run one’s own business.
This textbook on ‘Employability Skills’ covers communication,
self-management, information and communication technology,
entrepreneurial and green skills. It has been developed as per the learning
outcome-based curriculum. The employability skills are embedded in
the Qualification Packs of the different job roles in various sectors under
the National Skill Qualification Framework. The textbook aims to provide
learning experience through a blended approach of text and video-based
interactive e-learning lessons. Running these e-learning lessons in
classrooms would require a computer with Internet connection, projector

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 and sound system, which the school needs to provide to teachers and
students. The teachers will guide the students to actively participate
in class. The students can ask and answer questions, and follow the
instructions to complete the exercises and activities.

Vinay Swarup Mehrotra

Professor and Head
Curriculum Development and Evaluation Centre
and National Skill Qualification Framework Cell,
PSSCIVE, Bhopal

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 Acknowledgements

The National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT)

expresses its gratitude to all members of the Project Approval Board
(PAB) and officials of the Ministry of Human Resource Development
(MHRD), Government of India, for their cooperation in the development of
this textbook.
The Council thanks Rajesh P. Khambayat, Joint Director, PSSCIVE,
Bhopal, for rendering constant support and guidance in the development
of this textbook.
The Council acknowledges Saroj Yadav, Professor and Dean (Academic)
and Ranjana Arora, Professor and Head, Department of Curriculum Studies
(DCS), NCERT, for coordinating review workshops in the finalisation of
this textbook.
Review committee members from PSSCIVE, Bhopal — Abhijit Nayak,
Professor and Head, Department of Health and Paramedical; Deepak. D.
Shudhalwar, Associate Professor and Head, Department of Engineering
and Technology; Kuldeep Singh, Associate Professor, Department of
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry; Mridula Saxena, Professor, Department
of Home Science and Hospitality Management; P. Veeraiah, Professor and
Head, Department of Business and Commerce; Pinki Khanna, Professor
and Head, Department of Home Science and Hospitality Management;
Rajiv Pathak, Professor, Department of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry;
Saurabh Prakash, Professor, Department of Engineering and Technology;
R. K. Shukla, Professor, Department of Business and Commerce; and Vipin
K. Jain, Associate Professor and Head, Department of Humanities, Science
and Research, are also acknowledged for their valuable contributions.
The Council also acknowledges Aakash Sethi, Chief Executive Officer,
Quest Alliance; Aditi Kumar, Project Manager, Quest Alliance; Amit Singh,
Advisor, National Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business
Development; Austin Thomas, Executive Vice President, Wadhwani
Foundation; Mekin Maheshwari, Chief Executive Officer, Udhyam
Learning Foundation; Nidhi Sahni, Curriculum Manager, Wadhwani
Foundation; Nikita Bengani, Senior Program Manager, Quest Alliance;
Poonam Sinha, Joint Director, National Institute for Entrepreneurship

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 and Small Business Development; Rohit Massey, Consultant, National
Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development;
Shivani Gandhi, Program Manager, Udhyam Learning Foundation; Sonal
K. Jain, Consultant, Wadhwani Foundation; Sunil Dahiya, Executive
Vice President, Wadhwani Foundation; and Vikrant Chandela, Associate
Director, Wadhwani Foundation, for providing valuable inputs and
illustrations in the development of this textbook.
Vikas Kogey, Visual Analyser, and Pinki Tiwari, Graphic Designer,
PSSCIVE, Bhopal, are appreciated for redrawing some of the illustrations
used in the textbook. The images other than these have been sourced from
Creative Commons License.
Gratitude is also due to the Publication Division (PD), NCERT, for
transforming the manuscript into an attractive textbook. Special thanks are
due to Sweta Jha, Editor (contractual), and Shilpa Mohan, Assistant Editor
(contractual), for copyediting the manuscript. Pawan Kumar Barriar, DTP
Operator (PD), and Rajshree Saini and Hari Darshan Lodhi, DTP Operators
(contractual), are appreciated for layout and design.

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 Contents
Foreword iii
About the Textbook v
Unit 1: Communication Skills 1
Session 1 Active Listening 2
Session 2 Parts of Speech 9
Session 3 Writing Sentences 16
Unit 2: Self-management Skills 23
Session 1 Motivation and Positive Attitude 23
Session 2 Result Orientation 28
Session 3 Self-awareness 32
Unit 3: Information and Communication Technology Skills 39
Session 1 Getting Started with Spreadsheet 39
Session 2 Performing Basic Operations in a Spreadsheet 44
Session 3 Working with Data and Formatting Text 50
Session 4 Advanced Features in Spreadsheet 57
Session 5 Presentation Software 63
Session 6 Opening, Closing, Saving and 66
Printing a Presentation
Session 7 Working with Slides and Text in a Presentation 69
Session 8 Advanced Features used in Presentation 74
Unit 4: Entrepreneurship Skills 78
Session 1 Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneur 79
Session 2 Barriers to Entrepreneurship 91
Session 3 Entrepreneurial Attitudes 96
Session 4 Entrepreneurial Competencies 98
Unit 5: Green Skills 111
Session 1 Green Jobs 112
Session 2 Importance of Green Jobs 119
Answer Key 123
Glossary 125

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