India is passing through a demographic transition which makes India the youngest nation in the world with an average age of 29 years. This offers India the unique opportunity to provide skilled manpower not only to the rapidly growing domestic economy but also to the ageing economies of the west.

There is large heterogeneity among the states in their demographic profile and evolution A clear divide exists between peninsular India and the hinterland India. While the peninsular states are exhibiting a pattern akin to the developed economies, the hinterland states are relatively young and dynamic, characterized by a rising working age population.

The India Skills Report 2018, brought out by Wheebox, indicates that only 46 per cent of youth coming out of higher educational institutes are employable. This raises the issue of skill gap; skill mismatch or skills shortage. There is a paradoxical situation with industry complaining of shortage of skilled manpower and large number of educated youth not getting suitable employment.

A successful skill strategy needs to be complemented with creation of decent jobs including entrepreneurship opportunities across sectors so that livelihood creation becomes an outcome of economic growth. There is an emergent need to strengthen the entrepreneurship ecosystem to meet the aspiration of youth

Major Challenges.

The challenges in the skill ecosystem are a consequence of the labour market conditions and requirement of rapid economic growth and impacts quality, access, outreach and relevance.

• Large pool of poorly educated youth
• High demand for skilled manpower vis-à-vis low employability
• Skilling formal school dropouts to provide them a second chance to acquire basic numeracy, literacy and functional skills for accessing jobs in the formal sector
• Limited and unequal distribution of training capacities vis-à-vis youth demographics.
• Availability of good quality trainers due to lack of focus on development of trainers’ training programmes and career progression pathways for them
• Multiplicity in assessment and certification systems leading to inconsistent outcomes and confusion to the employers
• Preponderance of informal/unorganised sector and mapping of existing skills and skills required.
• Achieving convergence and coordination across sectors.

These challenges point to the fact that he growing Indian economy needs to meet the aspirations of its youth in a way that it fulfils the requirements of skill demand and supply of the domestic as well s the global employment market.

Change in Governance Structure:

Since the earlier governance structure and the skill ecosystem remained fragmented with 21 Ministries implementing 40 schemes with different standards, inputs and norms, a dedicated Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) was formed in November 2014 as the nodal ministry for all skill development activities in India. To consolidate the infrastructure and programme to achieve optimum utilization of the existing skill development institutions such as Directorate General of Training, NSDC and NSDA and later many programmes have been transferred to MSDE. The new Governance structure as outlined in the policy is depicted below:

Broad basing National Policy:

The National Policy on Skill Development 2009 has been revisited and a new policy with focus on entrepreneurship also was launched in 2015 – “National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship 2015”. The policy has redefined the vision for Skill India in terms of creating an ecosystem of empowerment by Skilling on a large scale at Speed with high Standards and to promote a culture of innovation based entrepreneurship which can ‘generate wealth and employment so as to ensure sustainable livelihoods for all citizens in the country. The 2015 National policy on Skill also recognizes the value of on-the-job training, by making apprenticeships in actual work environments an integral part of all skill development efforts.

Systemic Interventions:

Number is initiatives have been undertaken to improve the availability of information; synergy in delivery of training and standardization of competencies.

A Labour Market Information System (LMIS), an integrated database has been put in place to make available both demand side and supply side information at one place including trends in wages; focus areas for skilled manpower, occupational shortage etc.

To synergise the implementation of skill development schemes across Ministries/Departments and States, the Common Norms have been notified. This is likely to enable a common framework, improve quality and bring consistency across stakeholders.

A competency based framework NSQF has allowed all such skills to be tested and certified under Recognition of Prior Learning and is enabling millions of experientially skilled to derive proper economic and social benefit of their skills.

All training programmes have been aligned with NSQF framework, requiring them to be industry validated.

The workers in the labour intensive sectors are likely to be the biggest beneficiaries.

Increasing Training Capacity:

The long term training capacity of the ITI’s increased significantly. The PMKVY centres are spread across various states and UT’s and efforts are made to make available the training facility in each district.

Improving Quality and Relevance:

Over 5,000 ITI’s and 15,000 training centers have been graded on parameters including infrastructure, equipment, trainers and past performance/industry linkages to help identify the quality differential among training centers. This would facilitate choice for the prospective trainee and build in the competition. The strengthening of accreditation and affiliation norms for ITI’s has improved the training infrastructure.

Further, a system of concurrent monitoring through SMART portal has been introduced for maintaining quality of training.

Technology has been extensively used for the purpose of evaluation and monitoring including mobile app for center inspections, monitoring visits to assessments, allowing for real time monitoring of scheme progress

The efforts for improved quality led to increased placement percentage Further, to improve the quality special focus is laid on training of trainers. Takshila portal has been launched to mobilize the trainers and assessors, capturing their profile and mapping their pathway inside the skill ecosystem.

Formalizing the Informal Skills: Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) and Apprenticeship:

In India, about 93 per cent are informally employed. Most of these have no formal vocational training blocking their pathways to progression. To facilitate these workers and to map the skilling requirement of the informal sector a programme “Recognition of Prior Learning” has been introduced whereby the skills of workers are tested, assessed and certified. Evaluation of trade learned skills and certification through assessment helps the trainees through increased mobility options to the formal sector employment. RPL certification helps workers to negotiate better wages in vertical progression in their careers.

The apprenticeship model leads to the creation of an industry-ready workforce. Most countries around the world have implemented the apprenticeship model – Japan Germany USA.

A user-friendly online portal has been launched in order to facilitate the easy processing of the entire apprenticeship cycle and for effective administration and monitoring of the scheme.

MSDE is working towards promoting the skilling ecosystem through its initiatives to provide incentives to employers and creating a regulatory framework to promote compliance. It is felt hat initiatives such as NAPS will enable creation of an industry-ready workforce and help to transform India into the Skill Capital of the World’

Making Skill Acquisition Aspirational:

Lack of lucrative wages and information asymmetry in the job market are key factors inhibiting move towards vocational education. Progression pathways have been.

The Participation in World Skills competition and regional level skill competitions has provided a platform to get recognition and showcase excellence. In the recent World Skill Competition 9 Medallions of Excellence, silver, and bronze medals were won by young Indians in Abu Dhabi.

For the first time, graduation ceremonies are held at ITI’s and Skill centres to award certificates. The Kaushal melas are organized for motivating youths and their communities to make skill as an alternative career option.

Making India Skill Capital of the World:

Indian workers have been migrating out of India for employment. There has been a shift in emigration trend from relatively prosperous states such as Karnataka and Kerala to states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh has witnessed the highest emigration with 25 per cent of the total workers migrating out of India for skilled and unskilled work belonging to the state.

In order to facilitate mobility of Indian workers globally MSDE has set up with MEA India International Skill Center to provide skill training along with Pre departure orientation and basic language skills.

Integrating Micro Industries to Marketplace:

With the advent of technology, creating and integrating more micro enterprises at village level to larger marketplaces may limit migration and increase the chances for continued livelihood. There is need to encourage states to take advantage of State component of PMKVY to have locally relevant skill training.

Skill Wage Premium:

Wage premium for skilled labour is still not a reality in the Indian industries which are more cost focused and thus unable to realize the benefits of a skilled workforce. The lack of any wage advantage, on one hand causes the students to directly seek employments as unskilled labor and learn on-the-job rather than undertaking a skill development programme.

Informal and Unorganized Economy:

To address the skill requirement of the informal sector there is need to generate accurate information of the skill demand/job opportunities through district level skill studies.

Encouraging Private Sector Funding:

While industries are a direct beneficiary of the skilled manpower, the skilling initiative has been entirely funded by government initiatives. We need there is need for availability of quality employment requiring convergence across macro and labour policies and mapping of the jobs wage/self-employed created across sectors for continuous upgrading of the skill training programmes and keeping it industry relevant.