Skilling for India’s future: Are we ready?

While our country boasts a pulsating economy growing at the rate of 7.4%, the low penetration of technology in smaller cities and towns still remains a major problem. Because the majority of the country’s population live in these places, it has led to a deadlock between jobs and job-ready talent.

Even though the country’s economy is growing at a fast rate, there is no reduction in the unemployment rate. Are you wondering the reasons for the same?

The reasons are modern education and skill intensity that fail miserably in matching the standards and expectations of a technology-driven economy. Our system of education fails to recognize the changing needs of businesses and continues focussing on theoretical learning. The mainstream education in our country has little or almost no focus on imparting soft skills and technology training to students. Even more, lifelong learning holds no significance in the Indian system of education.

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While the educational system in foreign countries emphasizes a lot on research-driven education and there is a huge public investment in the area of education in these countries, the age-old system of education continues to exist in our country without any public spending on education or focus on research-intensive education. Thus, the deeply sad state of affairs in the education sector of our country is only going to make the gap wider between the jobs and available talent which is not skill-ready.

In order to make the younger generations ready for jobs and career opportunities that will be available in the future, there is a need to address questions pertaining to:

• Skill alignment
• Gender opportunity
• Structural inequality

There is a need to educate the youngsters on the importance of gaining skills and the mediums to gain those skills. Both the students and young professionals must be made aware of the options that are available for skill enrichment. While there are abundant options available for regular courses that focus on imparting practical education and skill-specific training, there is no dearth of distance education programs that are available for students who wish to pursue continuing education or have any locational constraints. The distance education courses may also be pursued by candidates who are already working but are looking at gaining some useful skills that will help them advance their careers. India’s successful distance education providers like Rapidskillz, distanceknowledge, etc are examples of why young professionals need to explore the option of taking e-learning courses in changing times. In order to meet the changing demands of jobs, the online programs for businesses of all types are being announced by learning providers to help them make a successful transition to the online world.

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Even though the Indian Government is taking an initiative to develop an infrastructure in the form of vocational training institutes and industrial training institutes, the mere existence of these institutions is not the solution. Notably, the projects, started by our Prime Minister, like SKILL INDIA, PMKVY, DDUGKY are making some impact but the change that is taking place is very slow.

As said before, awareness is important. There is a need to educate people on the types of jobs that will be available in the future and how these jobs will only require skilled individuals. And, why the use of technology and its know-how is important? Also, there is a need to address the problem of corruption at the grass root levels otherwise skilling of manpower will remain limited to papers.

Due to the different nature of jobs that will be available in the future, the advanced knowledge of computers will be one of the pre-requisites for applicants seeking jobs. Not only the freshers will have to be equipped with the technical know-how, but the individuals who are already in jobs will also need re-skilling and continuing education.

Some Final Words

For India to be future ready for skilled jobs, the technology integration in education is the only solution. Besides technology integration, there is a need to encourage youth to develop creativity as a way of thinking. And, there is a need to raise individuals who believe in being solution finders and to whom problem-solving comes naturally.

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