Skill Development
✓ According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE),
the unemployment rate reached 34% among the 20-24-year-olds in the first quarter
of 2019 — it was 37.9% among the urban lot.
✓ At least eight million new job seekers enter the job market every year. In 2017, only
5.5 million jobs had been created, and the situation is worsening: Unemployment
rate is the highest in 45 years today.
✓ According to the last 2018 Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the unemployment
rate among the urban 15-29-years-old was 23.7%.
Skill Training and Unemployment
▪ This pervasive joblessness is mainly due to the poor training of the youth as only 7% of
the people surveyed in the framework of the PLFS declared any formal or informal
training.
▪ The current data suggest that only 2.3% of the workforce in India has undergone formal
skill training as compared to 68% in the UK, 75% in Germany, 52% in the USA, 80% in
Japan and 96% in South Korea.
▪ On the other hand, according to a recent survey, 48% of Indian employers reported
difficulties filling job vacancies due to skill shortage.
▪ The CMIE reports show that the more educated Indians are, the more likely they are to
remain unemployed too. The last PLFS for 2018 revealed that 33% of the formally
trained 15-29-year-olds were jobless.
Initiatives Taken
▪ “Skill India” programme, that aims to train a minimum of 300 million skilled people by
the year 2022.
▪ Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), a dimension of skill India, under which
the training fees were paid by the government.
▪ Its main tool was the “short-term training”, which could last between 150 and 300 hours,
and which included some placement assistance by Training Partners upon successful
completion of their assessment by the candidates.
▪ In 2014, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship was created to harmonise
training processes, assessments, certification and outcomes and, crucially, to develop
Industrial Training Institutions (ITIs) — the building blocks of this endeavour.
Shortcomings in the Desired Outcome
▪ The target of Skill India was to reach out to 300 million young people by 2022, but only
25 million had been trained under this scheme by the end of 2018.
o This is partly due to mismanagement and partly due to not spending available
funds because of lack of candidates.
▪ Even those who have been trained under Skill India and PMKVY are unable to find jobs.
o The number of those who have benefited from the Skill India scheme has
increased, from 3,50,000 in 2016-17 to 1.6 million in 2017-18, but the percentage
of those who could find a job upon completion of their training has dropped from
more than 50% to 30%.
o Under PMKVY, only 15% of those trained got a job.
Challenges in Skill Development
▪ Insufficient training capacity: The training was not sufficient to ensure a job for those
who got the training – and this is why the employability rate remains very low.
▪ Lack of entrepreneurship skills: While the government expected that some of the
PMKVY-trainees would create their own enterprise, only 24% of the trainees started
their business. And out of them, only 10,000 applied for MUDRA loans.
▪ Low industry interface: Most of the training institutes have low industry interface as a
result of which the performance of the skill development sector is poor in terms of
placement records and salaries offered.
▪ Low student mobilization: The enrolment in skill institutes like ITIs, and polytechnics,
remains low as compared to their enrolment capacity. This is due to low awareness level
among youths about the skill development programmes.
▪ Employers’ unwillingness: India’s joblessness issue is not only a skills problem, it is
representative of the lack of appetite of industrialists and SMEs for recruiting.
o Due to limited access to credit because of Banks’ NPAs, investment rate has
declined and thus a negative impact on job creation.
Way Forward
▪ Enhanced Expenditure on Education and Training:
o In the long run, Skill India will also not be enough if government expenditures in
education remain low and if, therefore, the ground isn’t prepared for proper
training.
o Government allocation for school education has declined from 2.81% of the
budget in 2013-14 to 2.05% in 2018-19 which is further alarming situation.
▪ Evaluation of Training Institutes: NSDC should also develop some techniques to
evaluate the performance of training institutes and encourage them to perform better.
▪ Skills survey: Surveys can be conducted to find the exact skill requirements from the
employers. Analysis of such surveys would help in designing course structures of the
training programs and thus standardized course curriculum or training delivery systems
can be developed.
▪ India needs to learn from technical and vocational training/education models in China,
Germany, Japan, Brazil, and Singapore, who had similar challenges in the past, along
with learning from its own experiences to adopt a comprehensive model that can bridge
the skill gaps and ensure employability of youths.
Government Measures to promote Skill Development in India:
The Ministry has put special emphasis in 2019 on Convergence, Increased Scale, Meeting
Aspirations and Improved Quality.
Initiatives Related to Convergence
▪ The National Skill Development Mission (NSDM): It aims to create convergence across
sectors and States in terms of skill training activities.
o It also aims to expedite decision making across sectors to achieve skilling at scale
with speed and standards.
▪ Skill India Portal: It is a strong IT Platform that was launched to converge the skilling
data of various Central Ministries, State Governments, Private Training Providers and
Corporates on a single platform.
Initiatives for Increasing Scale
▪ Industrial Training Centres (ITIs): Aims to expand and modernize the existing Long-Term
Training ecosystem in India.
▪ Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY): Aims to provide free skill training
avenues to youths of India.
▪ Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendra (PMKK): These are the state-of-the-art Model Training
Centres envisaged to create benchmark institutions that demonstrate aspirational value
for competency-based skill development training.
▪ Recognition of Prior Learning: It was launched to recognize the prior skills acquired by
individuals. It is one of the key components of Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana
(PMKVY).
o Under this an individual with a certain set of skills or with prior learning experience
is assessed and certified under RPL with grade according to the National Skills
Qualification Framework (NSQF).
▪ Skill Management and Accreditation of Training Centres (SMART): It provides a single
window IT application that focuses on the accreditation, grading, Affiliation and
Continuous monitoring of the Training Centres (TC) in the skill ecosystem.
▪ SANKALP: Its focus is on district-level skilling ecosystem through convergence and
coordination. It is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme which is collaborated with the World
Bank.
o It aims to implement the mandate of the National Skill Development Mission
(NSDM).
▪ STRIVE: The main focus of the scheme is to improve the performance of ITIs. Skills
Strengthening for Industrial Value Enhancement (STRIVE) scheme is a World Bank
assisted-Government of India project with the objective of improving the relevance and
efficiency of skills training provided through Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and
apprenticeships.
▪ Pradhan Mantri YUVA Yojana (Yuva Udyamita Vikas Abhiyan): It aims at creating an
enabling ecosystem for Entrepreneurship development through Entrepreneurship
education and training; Advocacy and easy access to entrepreneurship support network
and Promoting social enterprises for inclusive growth.
Meeting Aspirations
▪ Kaushalyacharya Awards: are launched in a bid to recognize the contribution made by
skill trainers and to motivate more trainers to join the Skill India Mission.
▪ National Entrepreneurship Awards 2019: the awards were presented to honor
outstanding contributions in entrepreneurship development. This is in line with
promoting entrepreneurship amongst the youth so as to create more job givers than job
seekers in the nation.
▪ Skill Saathi Counseling Program: MSDE also launched the Skill Saathi program which
was aimed to sensitize the youth of the country on various avenues under Skill India
Mission and increase the aspiration for skill development.
▪ Offering vocational courses and Working closely with CBSE to develop “Hubs of
Excellence in Skills” for school students, MSDE will introduce high quality, technology-
oriented skill programs to schools.
▪ Embedded apprenticeship degree program: MSDE and MHRD have together rolled out
the SHREYAS program where apprenticeship degree programs in retail, media and
logistics are embedded into degree programs such as BA/BSc/BCom (Professional)
courses in higher educational institutions.
▪ India Institute of Skills (IIS): In order to bring a certain standard and stature in terms of
quality and quantity to skills, MSDE recently announced setting up of the Indian Institute
of Skills (IIS) in Mumbai which would be to the stature and repute of IIMs and IITs of the
country.
Improved Quality
▪ Reforms to Apprenticeship Act of 1961: The ministry introduced a wide range of
reforms to the Apprenticeship Act of 1961, to make it significantly easier for industry to
take on much needed apprentices.
o Increasing upper limit for engaging apprentices from 10% to 15%;
o Decreasing the size limit of an establishment with mandatory obligation to engage
apprentices from 40 to 30;
o Payment of stipend for 1st year has been fixed rather than linking it to minimum
wages;
o 10% to 15% hike in stipend for 2nd and 3rd year to apprentice;
o Duration of apprenticeship training for optional trade can be from 6 months to 36
months.
▪ Dual System of Training: The MSDE is also scaling up the ITIs Dual System Training (DST)
scheme to at least 1000 ITIs. The DST is a model of training inspired by the German
method and provides industry exposure through industry led trainings to students of
the various ITIs.
▪ MSDE has launched new age courses which include Internet of Things – Smart
Healthcare; Internet of Things – Smart cities; 3D printing; Drone pilots; Solar Technicians
and Geo Informatics among many others.
▪ Formation of District Skill Committees: In order to get to the grass roots of the country
with its various reforms and empower every citizen, the ministry has formed District Skill
Committees (DSC) in all Districts as part of its Aspirational Skilling Abhiyaan under the
Sankalp program, which is funded by World Bank.
▪ Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship (MNGF): MSDE has also constituted the
Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship (MNGF) for 75 districts across 6 states.
▪ Indian Skill Development Services (ISDS): To ensure that the skilling of the country’s
youth gets the importance that it deserves, the government has carved out an
altogether new administrative service. The Indian Skill Development Services (ISDS) has
been created through a notification by the MSDE.
▪ Community mentors called Business Sakhis: Based on the learnings from various
schemes and programmes introduced for women’s entrepreneurship promotion, in
2018, NIESBUD in association with UNDP, NIRDPR and TISS jointly developed a new
concept and system that is providing mentorship support services of both psycho-social
and business supports through a cadre of community mentors called Business Sakhis
(Biz-Sakhis).
Recent Initiatives:
SWADES: Skill Mapping Exercise for Returning Citizens
The initiative, undertaken as part of the Vande Bharat Mission, aims at empowering the
returning citizens with relevant employment opportunities.
Key features:
It is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, the Ministry of
Civil Aviation and the Ministry of External Affairs.
The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC)is supporting the implementation of the
project.
It aims to create a database of qualified citizens based on their skill sets and experience to
tap into and fulfil demand of Indian and foreign companies.
The collected information will be shared with the companies for suitable placement
opportunities in the country.
