When a nation develops, it leads to the development of its people too. With the advancement in the economies in terms of industrialisation, methods of agriculture and developing infrastructural playgrounds, skilling has become an integral part of the lives of people who want to have a good career along with a sustainable livelihood.

The people who are living in the rural areas or in such small towns which are yet to get a flavour of the development? People who have not got the right kind of education? People who are struggling to earn a livelihood because they are not educated?

Skilling plays an important role. By enrolling in a skill development program or a vocational training program, one not only enhances his/her knowledge and skill but, also becomes capable of getting trained for a desired job role. When a person gets skilled, not only his life stature changes but, it also carves a stable path for the coming generations to be living in a better condition.

What is Skill ?
Before we start discussing skilling, let’s understand what is a skill. A skill is an acquired capacity that can be achieved through enrolling in a skill development program or vocational training. The process of acquiring a skill through active learning is called skilling. A skill can be technical, interpersonal or cognitive. Sometimes, skilling is also a natural behavioral strength. For example, it is not uncommon to see a son of a farmer take up on farming because that is what he has seen while growing up. For him, it is only natural to take on farming as his profession. Here we can consider two perspectives (i) the son of a farmer becomes a farmer, follows the same method of farming, yield the same variety of crops and go to the same market to sell his crop and earn the same profitability. Perspective (ii) the son of a farmer becomes a farmer, goes to vocational training in farming and learns all the modern farming methods. He adapts them and earns better profitability. Thats the power of skilling.

As per a report by BBC News, UN Estimates have declared India as the largest democratic country. And by 2020, India is expected to become the World`s youngest country with 64% of its population in the working age group. But a democratic country particularly depends on the quality of citizens. While the population of several countries like China, Japan is aging, India remains young and poised for growth.

The Growth of a Nation is directly proportional to the Skilled Manpower and India has abundant still waiting to be up-skilled. But skilling the youth of India may not be as has easy, for, the biggest challenge in front of Indian youth is in form of providing employment.

With such career oriented talented youth, we have golden opportunity to transform India into a more competent, up-skilled, and a productive country. Key is to match our education system with the industry requirements. For now, we can start with making effective use of Governmental schemes, run for the benefit of the youth of our country, like:

Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PKVY)

Approved for another four years (2016-2020) to benefit 10 million youth Allocated Budget 12,000 Crores.Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) is the flagship scheme of the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE) implemented by National Skill Development Corporation. The objective of this Skill Certification Scheme is to enable a large number of Indian youth to take up industry-relevant skill training that will help them in securing a better livelihood. Individuals with prior learning experience or skills will also be assessed and certified under Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL).

Skill India:

Lifecycle of Training partner & Training Centre

With a holistic approach towards enabling a strong skill development system, the Lifecycle of Training Partner and Training Centre is aimed at building a quality assured process, meeting the required parameters of the Training Provider(s) and the Training Centre(s). To achieve this objective, NSDC provides a single-window clearance system to the Training Providers (TPs) with the following features:
Transparent, unified, one-stop solution with mandated time-bound delivery of accreditation and affiliation of Training Centres Single, front-end portal interface for Training Providers, ensuring accessibility to Sector Skill Councils (SSCs) and Schemes Providing opportunity to stakeholders to perform continuous technology-driven monitoring of the Training Centres Evaluating the performance of skill development programs objectively, to foster excellence and build effectiveness while delivering competency-based training. Enabling the trainees and other stakeholders to make informed choices regarding Training Centres.

Standup India:

Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI)

Stand Up India Scheme facilitate bank loans between 10 lakh and 1 crore to atleast one scheduled caste (SC) or Scehduled Tribe, borrower and atleast one women per bank branch for setting up a greenfield enterprise. This enterprise may be in manufacturing, services or the trading sector. In case of non-individual enterprises at least 51% of the shareholding and controlling stake should be held by either an SC/ST or Woman entrepreneur.

Even with such massively functioning schemes, there are some challenges in skilling the Youth of India

1. India spends very less on youth development compared to its size of the population. According to RBI, expenditure on education and health remains 2.9 and 1.4 as a proportion of country GDP in 2016-17, which is same as last year.
2. There are some serious challenges with Indian high education system. From a shortage of trained faculty to infrastructure to the course curriculum, there is certainly a huge gap to build a highly-skilled workforce.
3. The primary education in India is not so strong and like it or not, a solid primary education is mandatory to lay the foundation of a skilled workforce.

Skilling the youth The positives
The challenges are identified already by our government and many steps are being already initiated by the Government of India to transfer the workforce into a skilled workforce. This is particularly applicable for members of the lower-income strata including the unorganized working class like daily wage workers. Some of the measures that have been taken by the government already are skill-specific and aimed towards developing a skilled workforce in the coming years. Leveraging these programs, youth can earn decent and secure employment opportunities. The government initiative National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has a goal to upskill 500 million Indian youth by 2022.

In December 2014, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring 15th July as World Youth Skills Day with the goal of achieving better socio-economic conditions for today's youth as a means to address the challenge of unemployment and underemployment.

However, despite a global focus on skills as key economic upliftment indicator, the lack of a skilled workforce remains the major reason for growing youth unemployment in India and other emerging economies.

Education and training are central to generating employment for any economy. It is estimated that youth in the 15-25 age group is almost three times more likely to be unemployed than adults and continuously exposed to lower quality of jobs, greater labour market inequalities, and longer and more insecure school-to-work transitions. In addition, women are more likely to be underemployed and underpaid and to undertake part-time jobs or work under temporary contracts.

Reason for youth unemployment

• A major reason for youth unemployment is structural unemployment, a mismatch between the skills that workers in the economy can offer and the skills demanded of workers by employers
• Structural unemployment affects all regions around the world, and it impacts not only economies but also hampers the transition to equitable and inclusive societies
• Hence, skills development is the primary means of enabling young people to make a smooth transition to work.

With the majority of Indians failing to complete their education, there is also a need to skill the youth according to their needs and aspirations and help improve their dignity in jobs they do. A good way can be by opening applied skill institutions where everyone can learn and pursue their skills, be it carpentry or craftsmanship or AI and robotics.

Much needs to be done in the skilling domain, especially in developing countries like India to meet the challenges of rapid economic growth and the growing needs of industrialization. The way forward is to bring down NEET numbers by early skilling of youth and enabling training within formal education. If we are able to do this, there may be a silver lining at the end of the skills horizon.

Power of Youth is indubitable. They can achieve anything and everything if they want. If they are properly guided and provided with adequate resources and opportunities, they can contribute to the economic growth and help in the vision of developed India!!

Yuva Ias