Achieving Self-Reliance Through Entrepreneurial Education In India: Towards Sustainable 'Vocal For Local' Mantra.

India is a growing country and tops the list of nations with the highest rates of educated unemployment, which is a matter of concern. For our constantly expanding and changing economy, skilled workers and entrepreneurs are needed. Additionally, it was seen that the global economy had gone through a turbulent phase during the COVID 19 Pandemic crisis, forcing many individuals to leave their jobs. Due to their lack of practical experience in the various industries, it was quite harder for them to make ends meet in this situation. The emergence of pandemic has caused a very devastating impact on the lives of people. Since future is uncertain and we need to be open to it and ready to face. Witnessing such pandemic like situation and keeping in mind the emerging needs, the present paper focussed on what kind of educational environment must be created by the institutions to develop future ready learners, in order to confront the changing time and realities context? It is thus acclaimed that entrepreneurship can be the best option to prepare future ready learners. Moreover, UNESCO, in line with Sustainable Development Goal 4 and the Education 2030 Framework for Action, has also developed a TVET Strategy to strengthen Member States' technical education related systems and policies to promote employment, respectable work, entrepreneurship, and chances for life skills in certain national contexts. So, in present paper researchers studied the perception of the students towards entrepreneurship education with respect to gender, locale and stream. The study while adopting a descriptive method surveyed 100 students studying in Central University of Jammu. Data was collected online and analysed by using t-test. The findings revealed there was no significant difference in the perception of university students towards entrepreneurship with respect to gender, locale and stream and further strategic plan was suggested to incorporate entrepreneurship education along with mainstream to make youth self-reliant while leading towards a sustainable Indian market and economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]