ISSUES WITH THE EXISTING SKILL DEVELOPMENT INFRASTRUCTURE AND OUTLOOK:

• Spread across nearly 20 ministries and hence lacks coherency and holistic approach; same applies to the state-level Skill Development Missions where convergence cannot be ensured without robust coordination and monitoring mechanism
• Multiplicity of norms, procedures, curricula, certification etc. 
• Non-alignment with the demand – due to lack of relevant data and studies
• Non-availability of good trainers
• Reluctance of the industry in providing a wage differential for skilled workers, leading to low absorption of skilled manpower
• Society is “obsessed” with a person's “degree” more than his earning potential
• Low aspirational value
• Lack of integration with formal education
• Lack of focus on outcomes
• Low participation of women in the workforce
• Concerns with educational, vocational and professional academic bodies and also lack of robust data collection on the same. 

HOW SKILL DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS WILL SOLVE THE PROBLEM:

• To address the paradoxical situation where industry is looking for skilled manpower and skilled youth are looking for jobs.
• To meet the challenges of ageing-India and reap the potential of growing-India: the southern States – due to higher median age now and early fertility transitions – would be ageing, while the States such as UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan – with low median age – have different policy requirements.
• To measure the outcomes of various interventions and to institutionalize a focus on improving outcomes
• To skill the population for overseas opportunities.
• Scene at world level: Internationally, OECD established the world indicators of skills for employment (WISE) includes a focus on contextual factors in a country, such as the GDP, population, employment in informal sector; factors affecting skill acquisition, such as educational attainment, literacy rate, enrolment ratios, vocational programme, participation in training/apprenticeship, factors affecting skill requirement, such as employment share by level of education, occupation, incidence of self-employment, skill use and outcomes in terms of growth in GDP, labour productivity, employment rate, earnings, etc.

CONCERNS:

• Unavailability of suitable jobs for the skilled youth (over-education)
• Voluntary unemployment preferred over low-paying jobs (especially when one paid high educational fees) i.e. adopting the ‘wait-and-watch’ policy for the right job profile and remuneration
• Downgrading of employment i.e. hiring of candidates, with higher but superfluous qualifications, for elementary positions (e.g. news reports of PhD holders applying for peon vacancies)
• Disparity between colleges’/universities’ curriculums and industry requirements/expectations
• Inability of the teaching staff to cope with varied and dynamic needs of the industry
• Need to distinguish between enhancement of skills by education versus on-the-job training
• Devaluation of skill-focussed learning – vocational education is deemed as undignified and equated with blue collar jobs
• Stress on life skills including language and communication skills, work ethics is missing.

 WAY FORWARD

• NITI Aayog’s programme ‘Sustainable Action for Transforming Human capital’ (SATH) is the much need intervention to harvest the demographic dividend
• Establishment of National Skills University will help in addressing the false perception of society with vocational education and setting up higher standards of skill
• Partnership with the industry experts is needed for creation of a pool of trainers and instructors
• Technology should be exploited to expand the reach of skilling programmes and institutes
• Mechanism to harness the Non-resident Indian (NRI) talent pool for mentorship, skill development and expertise (as recommended by Tarun Khanna-headed Expert Committee on Innovation & Entrepreneurship) are being worked upon e.g. VAJRA

RECENT GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES.

SANKALP & STRIVE SCHEMES: SKILL INDIA MISSION

• SANKALP stands for Skills Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion and STRIVE stands for Skill Strengthening for Industrial Value Enhancement. Both the Schemes are assisted by the World Bank.

Highlights of the Schemes

• These are outcome focused projects marking a shift in government’s implementation strategy in vocational education and training from inputs to results.
• SANKALP, a centrally sponsored scheme (funded directly by Central Ministries and implemented by States or their agencies), addresses this need by setting up national bodies for accreditation and certification.The bodies shall regulate assessment and certification in both long and short term vocational education and training (VET).
• STRIVE, a central sector scheme (funded and implemented by the Central Government machinery), aims to modernize 500+ ITIs through outcomes and reform linked funding.
• The architecture shall help to converge the efforts of various central, state and private sector institutions thereby avoiding duplication of activities and bringing about uniformity in vocational training.

START-UP SANGAM INITIATIVE

• It was launched for bringing in innovations and disruptions in the technology in heavy oil and gas industry
• Under the initiative a corpus of 320 crore has been put together by contribution of various PSUs like - India Oil Corporation, ONGC, Engineers India etc.
• Skill development is all the more important given the limited time period for which our demographic dividend will last. More effort is needed in this direction.