Need for skill development courses in India

Skills and knowledge are the driving forces of economic growth and social development for any country. Countries with higher and better levels of skills adjust more effectively to the challenges and opportunities of world of work. Potentially, the target group for skill development comprises all those in the labour force, including those entering the labour market for the first time (12.8 million annually), those employed in the organized sector (26.0 million) and those working in the unorganized sector (433 million) in 2004-05. The current capacity of the skill development programs is 3.1 million. India has set a target of skilling 500 million people by 2022. As the proportion of working age group of 15-59 years will be increasing steadily, India has the advantage of “demographic dividend‟. Harnessing the demographic dividend through appropriate skill development efforts would provide an opportunity to achieve inclusion and productivity within the country and also a reduction in the global skill shortages. Large scale skill development is thus an imminent imperative.

An estimated 50-70 million jobs will be created in India over the next five years and about 75%-90% of these additional employment avenues will require some vocational training.

India lags far behind in imparting skill training as compared to other countries. Only 10% of the total workforce in the country receives skill training. Further, 80% of the entrants into the workforce do not have the opportunity for skill training.

The accelerated economic growth has increased the demand for skilled manpower that has highlighted the shortage of skilled manpower in the country. Employees worldwide state a variety of reasons for their inability to fill jobs, ranging from undesirable geographic locations to candidates looking for more pay than what the employers have been offering. India is among the top countries in which employers are facing difficulty in filling up the jobs. 

For India, the difficulty to fill up the jobs is 48%, which is above the global standard of 34% in 2012. The lack of available applicants, shortage of hard skills and shortage of suitable employability, including soft skills, is some of the key reasons in finding a suitable candidate for available jobs in the country.

Roadblocks to quality skill training There are several challenges that are faced by the government in imparting quality skill training to the youth of the country. These challenges include: ·         Increasing capacity and capability of the existing system to ensure equitable access for all ·         Maintaining quality and relevance ·         Creating effective convergence between school education and the government’s skill development efforts ·         Creating institutional mechanism for research development quality assurance, examinations and certification, affiliations and accreditation ·         Mobilizing adequate investment for financing skill development Advantage India: what we can capitalize on As compared to western economies where there is a burden of an ageing population, India has a unique 20–25 years window of opportunity called the “demographic dividend.” 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. Projected growth and sector demand In its Twelfth Five Year Plan, India has set a tough challenge in the field of vocational education and training in its approach paper. It aims to increase the percentage of workforce with formal skills to 25% at the end of the plan. It is estimated that 50–70 million jobs will be created in India over the next five years and about 75%–90% of these additional employment avenues will require some vocational training. The following table presents the projected employment in the various sectors of economy for diverse growth scenarios till 2017. Year GDP growth rate Projected employment (in million) Agriculture Industry Services Total 2011–12 9% 229.2 105 153.5 487.7 7% 225.4 102 149 476.4 5% 221.5 99.1 144.6 465.2 2016–17 9% 240.2 126.2 189.5 555.9 7% 232 116.8 174.8 523.5 5% 224 108.1 161.2 493.3 Source:NSDC Capacity development in India In India, about 12 million people join the workforce each year comprising highly skilled (constitute a minuscule part), skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled work force. The last category constitutes the majority of the population entering the workforce. However, the current skill capacity of the country is about four million. Hence, skilling and technical education capacity needs to be enhanced to about 15 million.