Skill Development - the need of an hour
(Written in 2019-20)
Mr. Sudhir*
India can be considered as one of the fastest growing economy because of having the abundance of human capital. But there is an utmost importance of its human resource development as without it we can’t become the prospective leading nation. For it, there is a dire need of skill development of human capital as they are one of the greatest assets for our economy. Thus there is a great need of a curriculum reform in education which can develop the skill of our futuristic citizens in a marvelous manner. Education based on vocational aspects need to be emphasized. And for it skill development is broader need. Education must be more practical, more diverse, and more comprehensive. Though it would be difficult for us to monitor the procedure in the beginning but it can help us to pave our country towards prosperity. In Old India, the education was completely based on skills and that’s why we were quite prosperous and rich at that time. But after the arrival of British Rulers our very backbone i.e. skill based education was desperately broken. After Independence the utmost importance and attention is given to education and training, but still there is a shortage of skilled manpower in India to address the mounting needs and demands of the economy. In the current scenario, the government is dedicatedly striving to initiate and achieve formal/informal skill development of the working population via education/vocational education/skill training and other upcoming learning methods.
1. Concept of Skill Development
A growing number of countries have achieved the goal of universal primary education and others are moving closer to this goal. Young people who expect to pursue further education and training to improve their chances for employment and higher earnings get benefited from these goals. A skill is the learned ability to carry out a task with pre-determined results often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. In other words the abilities that one possesses. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. For example, in the domain of work, some general skills would include time management, teamwork and leadership, self motivation and others, whereas domain-specific skills would be useful only for a certain job. Skill usually requires certain environmental stimuli and situations to assess the level of skill being shown and used. People need a broad range of skills in order to contribute to a modern economy. Skill development has always been an important agenda for all the governments India has seen so far. When it comes to a fast developing country like India, the desired set of skills is of much more importance than any other economy. Different types of skills are needed to be developed in an individual in order to meet lifestyle and industrial needs. A few can be named as Labor Skill, Life Skill, People Skill, Social skill, soft skill, hard skill, etc. The development of these types of skills is the need of an hour.
(i) Skill Development
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), “Skill development is of key importance in stimulating a sustainable development process and can make a contribution in facilitating the transition from an informal to formal economy. It is also essential to address the opportunities and challenges to meet new demands of changing economies and new technologies in the context of globalization.” The objective of Skill Development is to create a workforce empowered with the necessary and continuously upgraded skills, knowledge and internationally recognized qualifications to gain access to decent employment and ensure India’s competitiveness in the dynamic global market. It aims at increasing the productivity and employability of workforce (wage and self-employed) both in the organized and the unorganized sectors. And therefore, Skill based Educational model has to be adopted at the earliest. Skills development can help build a virtuous circle in which the quality and relevance of education and training for all genders fuels the innovation, investment, technological change, enterprise development, economic diversification and competitiveness that economies need to accelerate the creation of more jobs.
2. Current Scenario of Skill Development in India
A committee has been set up under the ‘Skills Innovation Initiative’ at National Skill Development Agency (Government of India) to bring new ideas and practices to the national level. This will benefit in implementing and extend uniform skill development program across the nation. The skill development of the working population is a priority for the government. The objective of National Policy on Skills (2009) is to expand on outreach, equity and access of education and training, which it has aimed to fulfill by establishing several industrial training institutes (ITIs), vocational schools, technical schools, polytechnics and professional colleges to facilitate adult leaning, apprenticeships, sector-specific skill development, e-learning, training for self employment and other forms of training. However, a fresh look at this policy was much needed in the frequently changing and more demanding industry needs. It led to the introduction of the National Policy on Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, 2015. The objective of this policy is to meet the challenge of skilling at scale with speed and standard (quality). It aims to provide an umbrella framework to all skilling activities being carried out within the country, to align them to common standards and link the skilling with demand centres. The effort is also to identify the various institutional frameworks which can act as the vehicle to reach the expected outcomes. This policy links skills development to improved employability and productivity.
3. Sources of Skill Development
India is one of the youngest nations in the world with more than 54% of the total population below 25 years of age. India’s workforce is the second largest in the world after China’s. While China’s demographic dividend is expected to start tapering off by 2015, India will continue to enjoy it till 2040. India has the advantage of the “Demographic Dividend” (younger population compared to the ageing population of developed countries), which can be cultivated to build a skilled workforce in the near future. As compared to western economies where there is a burden of an ageing population, India has this unique 20–25 years window of opportunity. This “demographic dividend” means that as compared to other large developing and developed countries, India has a higher proportion of working age population vis-à-vis its entire population. It is estimated that by about 2025, India will have the 25% of the total global workforce. Only way appears to reap benefits of demographic dividend is to utilize skilled workforce. India has immense potential to not only meet its own demand, but become a worldwide hub for outsourcing skilled manpower. Government of India has set up a target to impart necessary skills to about 500 million people by 2022, in line with the skilled man power requirement of future. In view of this great advantage, not only government, but many private sector players have come
forward to enhance skill development among youth of India who will play a key role in shaping future of India.
(i) Private Sources: Private sector plays a major role is overcoming the gaps in government policies. However, their motive is to expand and scale up their very own enterprises. Thus, their process of skill development may vary. For instance, process flows like this:
Problem recognition: where the skilled workforce is required.
o Identifying the desired set of skill needed to complete the operation.
o Finding right candidates to be trained.
o Developing skills and improvement in performances.
o Place on job and candidate earn salary for the task.
This type of skill development is very selective and doesn’t benefit a larger pool of unemployed youth. As not everyone have same calibre, interests and remarkable motivation to do anything different or offbeat. Therefore, a common platform is needed to increase number of chances for every unemployed youth in country. Skill development programs should be designed in such a way that more and more individuals get benefit. Skills development is the intended output of education and training efforts and it should be an enabler for growth. Skills development, therefore, must be able to:
o Improve productivity in the workplace and the competitiveness of a businesses
o Improve the quality of life of workers, their prospects of work and their mobility.
Efforts are being made to mobilise private sector investments in various forms. Govt is proposing to set up a good number of ITIs (Industrial Training Institutes) and ATIs (Advanced Training Institutes) with active involvement of the private sector. Employers are active trainers, but not all employers train and those who do, do not train all workers.
(ii) Government Sources: Directorate General of Employment & Training (DGE&T), Ministry of Labour and Employment has implemented various remarkable skill development programs across India such as:
o Craftsmen Training Scheme (CTS)
o Advanced Vocational Training Scheme (AVTS)
o Apprenticeship Training Scheme (ATS)
o Skill Development Initiative Scheme (SDIS)
o Special coaching scheme for SC/ST
According to a Research Article entitled, Skill development initiatives and strategies written by Sonali Kanchan(Officer (HR)) and Sakshi Varshney (Petronet LNG Limited, Delhi (India)) “Presently 80% of the workforce in India (rural and urban) doesn’t possess any identifiable and marketable skills. Therefore, bridging this gap through various skill development initiatives could make India the global hub for skilled manpower, and also result in a surplus of skilled manpower of approximately 47 million 2020 (FICCI).”
Conclusion
Therefore, it is quite transparent that the skill based education is the utmost requirement of our prospective society and India is a country where we can find the ample of human resources. That’s why The Government of India has set up a target to impart necessary skills to about 500 million people by 2022, in line with the skilled man power requirement of future. In view of this great advantage, not only government, but many private sector players have come forward to enhance skill development among youth of India who will play a key role in shaping future of India. Thus, there is an utmost requirement of educational reform based on skill as it can lead us towards the zenith. But for acquiring this goal the awareness programme need to be introduced so that our youth can endeavour for achieving it.
References
Kanchan, Sonali & Varshney, Sakshi (2015). Skill development initiatives and strategies (Asian Journal Of Management Research), Vol 5, retrieved from
www.ipublishing.co.in
Pandey, Seema (2016). Improvising Skill Development &Employability Potential through Higher Education, Research & Innovations in India (International Journal of Innovative Research in Science,Engineering and Technology), Vol 5, retrieved from
www.ijirset.com
