Skill Development for World’s Youngest and Largest Workforce

The current population of India is 1,387,202,938 (as on 30^th Dec 2019) and the average age is 27.1 years. By 2026 around 64 per cent of India’s population is expected to be in the age bracket of 15-59 years. By 2030, India will have the world’s youngest and largest workforce, exceeding one billion. All these figures indicate the importance of creating more income earning opportunities and also, to make these huge population properly skilled. As per the scope of this article, the 2^nd aspect that is skill development is discussed here. This is a huge responsibility to make this workforce job ready. But this can never be possible without the involvement of all the stakeholders.

The government took skill development initiatives long back by improving and expanding access to vocational education and training opportunities  and considering the importance of the subject, the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE, https://www.msde.gov.in/) under Government of India was set up on 9^th November 2014 to coordinate all skill development efforts across the country  and give necessary fillip to this objective of skill development.

Since MSDE’s inception, its focus has been on addressing two distinct failures in the skills market: providing required number and quality of workforce. The number of Indians are entering the workforce every year far exceeds the training capacity of the skills system available. Recognising this, MSDE sought to facilitate large scale training through significant increase in capacity and enrolment in long-term courses, coupled with increase in short-term training courses.

But, this effort of large-scale quality skill development cannot be done in isolation and so the partnership with the industry and other stakeholders are key.  The National Skill Development Council (NSDC) under MSDE is playing a very important role in this regard. To bridge the gap between the industry requirements and the workforce knowledge level, Sector Skill Councils (SSCs) were set up under NSDC bringing together all the stakeholders – industry, labour and the academia.

The SSCs operate as an autonomous body and could be registered as a Section 8 Company, or a Society. NSDC is mandated to initiate and incubate SSCs with initial seed funding to facilitate their growth and enable them to achieve self-sustainability in a time bound manner.

The National Policy on Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, 2015 laid out Skill India Mission, and envisaged the creation of Sector Skill Councils (SSCs) by NSDC. Priority sectors were identified based on the skill gap analysis.

Till date, the NSDC Board has approved 38 Sector Skill Councils (https://nsdcindia.org/sector-skill-councils ). There are over 600 Corporate Representatives in the Governing Councils of these SSCs.

The SSCs are executing the following functions: –

• Identification of skill development needs
• Development of a sector skill development plan and maintaining skill inventory.
• Determining skills/competency standards and qualifications
• Standardization of affiliation, accreditation, examination and certification process
• Participation in the setting up of affiliation, accreditation, examination and certification norms for their respective sectors.
• Plan and facilitate the execution of Training of Trainers along with NSDC and states.
• Promotion of academies of excellence.
• Paying particular attention to the skilling needs of ST/SC, differently-abled and minority groups.
• Ensuring that the persons trained and skilled in accordance with the norms laid down are assured of employment at decent wages.

So, there has been a number of programs from the government towards a better result in this regard. As we move forward, we need to target the small and informal sector as they engage around 90% of the workforce. Any formal skills development to this sector can add huge value like improving productivity & profitability. And, it should go hand in hand with the enterprises. In order to reach to its maximum potential, the following steps should be followed: –

• Creating awareness on why skills matter for every member of the workforce and the enterprises
• Making easy access to information on opportunities, both market demand and supply situation as well as training information like training centres, placement agencies, training content, etc.
• Using digital technology for training and skill development is a must to scale up

To make it further effective, it will be better to engage the initiatives like the National Council for Vocational Education and Training (NCVET). This will regulate two of the most important stakeholders in the skilling ecosystem, the awarding bodies, who accredit training institutions, and the assessment agencies, who assess learner performance.

Last but not least, employment is the key for any skill development program whether self or wage employment. The skill development bodies should have specific emphasis for this by engaging through best possible ways like digital job portals either developed by own or any 3^rd party.