With India’s demographic profile consisting of 550 million below the age of 25, it has the potential to constitute one-fourth of the global workforce by 2020. There is a need for a focused agenda for education and skill development to harness this.Statistics show that the lack of vocational skills is a major challenge.

NSS data (61st round 2004-05) indicates that of the individuals in the labour force aged 15-29, only two per cent have received formal vocational training and another eight per cent reported to have received non-formal vocational training. This figure is far higher in developed countries: 96% in South Korea, 80% in Japan, 75% in Germany, 68% in UK and even developing countries, 28% in Mexico, 22% in Botswana.

A part of the unemployment problem emanates from the mismatch between the skill requirements of the market and the skill base of the job seekers.In order to accelerate the course of development in the country, efforts have to be made to nourish innovation, entrepreneurship and to address the skill requirements of a growing economy.

While looking for new TVET and Skills development strategies, we need to remember that in India, the shift of knowledge based activity has made an impact to the industry  in two ways:

• Changing the manufacturing sector landscape so that some traditional heavy industries have shrunk considerably (e.g. engineering manufacturing) while other sectors of the manufacturing industry have moved up the value chain (e.g. electronic components and medical instruments);

• Reshaping the services sector, particularly through the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), leading to growth opportunities in both

This paradigm shift in industrial scenario has been reflected in the NASSCOM-McKinsey Report 2005 Projections which indicate that talent pool will fall short by about 0.5 million suitable professionals by the end of the decade and the IT and ITES sector will need an additional 1 million plus qualified people in the next five years.The Skills Development Mission of the Government of India envisages to devise a comprehensive scheme for developing diverse and wide range of skills for the youth that will enable the country to reap the scientific and demographic dividend.

Recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission

Towards a Knowledge Society, published by the National Knowledge Commission consisting of compilations of recommendations on education, has put specific emphasis on skills development.

To improve Vocational Education and Training (VET), NKC’s recommendations focus on increasing the flexibility of VET within the mainstream education system. NKC has also emphasised the need to expand capacity through innovative delivery models, including robust public private partnerships. Given that only seven per cent of the country’s labour force is in the organised sector, enhancing training options available for the unorganised and informal sector will be critical for enhancing the productivity of the bulk of our working population. It is necessary to ensure a robust regulatory and accreditation framework, along with proper certification of vocational education and training. This will allow easier mobility into higher education streams, enhancing the value of such  trainings.

Knowledge Initiatives in the 11th Five Year Plan

Vocational Training & Skill Development

• Launch a National Skill Development Mission with an outlay of Rs 31,200 crore to increase capacity from 2.5 million to 10 million per annum;

• The National Skill Development Mission would encourage Ministries to expand existing public sector skill development infrastructure and its utilisation by five fold.

• Modernise existing public sector infrastructure to get into PPP mode with functional and governance autonomy, establish a credible accreditation system and a guidance framework for all accrediting agencies, encourage agencies to rate institutions on standardised outcomes, and establish a “National Skill Inventory” and a “National Database for Skill Deficiency Mapping” on a national web portal.

• Set up a National Qualification Framework, which establishes equivalence and provides horizontal mobility between various Vocational, Technical and Academic streams at more than one career point and a Trainee Placement and Tracking System for effective evaluation and future policy planning.

• Enlarge the coverage of skill spectrum to 1000 trades, with relevance to our emerging needs while making a distinction between structural, interventional and last mile unemployability and correspondingly set up programmes for 24 months, 12 months and 6 months duration. “Finishing Schools” will be encouraged to take care of last mile unemployability.

  • Create a “National Skill Development Fund” imposing a universal skill development obligation on industry to invest in skill development of Scs/STs/OBCs/Minorities/ others candidates from BPL families – as their contribution to affirmative action combined with matching Government contribution.

  • Facilitate repositioning of employment exchanges as outreach points of the Mission for storing and providing information on employment and skill development and to function as career counselling centres.

  • Enlarge the 50,000 Skill Development Centres programme eventually into a “Virtual Skill Development Resource Network’ for web based learning.

  Other Training for Informal Sector

  Almost all  Central and State line ministries provide some form of training. They include: (1) The Ministry of Rural Areas and Employment conducting programmes like Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY); the Integrated Rural Development Programme, ending the Programme for Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA) and Training of Rural Youth for Self Employment (TRYSEM); (2) The Department of Women and Child Development which runs Support to Training and Employment Programme (STEP); (3) The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) which has 51 training centers including 12 village industry training centres; (4) Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust (BYST) helps unemployed and under-employed youth aged 18-35 years to set up their own businesses; (5) Entrepreneurship Development Centres which provide training in different fields based on the resource endowment of the area; (6) The National Renewal Fund (NRF) provides assistance to cover the cost of retraining and redeployment of employees arising from modernisation, technology upgradation and industrial restructuring; and (7) The Ministry of Agriculture’s Krishi Vigyan Kendra’s impart training to farmers, farm women, rural youth and grassroots level extension workers in agricultural products.

  Programmes and Projects for Underprivileged Sector under TVET

  Targeting disadvantaged groups means that measures are targeted at groups of individuals such as ethnic minority groups, the urban poor, women, redundant workers, the long term unemployed and youth. Programmes and projects have included language training, skills retraining and job placement programmes, enterprise training, micro enterprise lending programmes, etc.