SKILL INDIA MISSION
(By Piyush Sharma)
India has approximately 600 million youngsters below the age of 25 years. No other country in the world has more youngsters.
It is important to guide the youngsters in enhancing their skills and prepare them to become the future assets of the nation. They should be provided a platform where they can be trained and their skills moulded to reach perfection. With this perspective, thegovernment of India launched the Skill India mission on 15 July 2015 to train over 40 crore people in India in different skills by 2022.The primary objective is to provide vocational training for all occupation like carpenters, cobblers, blacksmiths, nurses, tailors, weavers etc. More emphasis will be given in a new area like real estate, construction, transport, textile, banking, tourism etc. This campaign cover both rural and urban areas.
The campaign was based on the belief that filling the pockets of the poor is not enough but rather instilling a sense of self- confidence in the poor. There is a Chinese proverb saying,
“Give a man a fish, he will eat today, but teach a man to fish and he will eat forever.”
The Skill India mission is expected to be the backbone for important government initiatives like Digital India, Smart Cities and Make in India. In fact, as the mission is not limited to skill, but also includes entrepreneurship. This mission trains individuals who seek help to enhance their knowledge and skill through hard work and commitment. The initiative was introduced by Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship along with National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC).
Initiatives under the Skill India mission:
- National Skill Development Mission
- National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, 2015
- Pradhan MantriKaushalVikasYojana (PMKVY)
- Skill Loan scheme
- Rural India Skill
Objectives of Skill India mission:
The main goal is to create opportunities, space and scope for the development of the talents of the Indian youth and to develop more of those sectors which have already been put under skill development for the last so many years and also to identify new sectors for skill development. The Skill India campaign aims to train over 40 crore people in different skills by 2022. Covering each and every village. Above mentioned schemes are also proposed to achieve this objective.
The program not only wishes for employment but also strives to broaden the mindset of the youth. Through Skill India mission, the government wants the youth to meet both local demand and rank well on a global scale. For this, we have entered into partnerships with foreign countries and global companies.
Challenges for skill development in India
For a country that adds 12 million people to its workforce every year, less than 4 percent have ever received any formal training. Our workforce readiness is one of the lowest in the world and a large number of existing training infrastructure are irrelevant to industry needs.
The government spends several thousand crores every year on skill development schemes through different Central Government Ministries and State Governments. The need of the hour is to improve resource utilization and find solutions that can address the systemic and institutional bottlenecks constraining the sector.
School education need to be matched with the government efforts in the area of skill development. In our country still education is based on the traditional concept, education does not necessarily provide skill required for the job.
Another challenge is the mindset of the people from the last 100s of years. People are looking at professions like doctors, engineers, charted accountants etc., but at present, there are 1600 job, roles which many even don’t know. For example, the society may not accept a plumber even if he is earning 1lahk per month during the marriage proposal. So there is still a lot to be done in India like educational programmes especially for parents where they start sending their children towards skill development. There is a need for the mindset change. Whether it is in agriculture, manufacturing or services, we need to create respect for that particular job. Creating awareness and creating respect for skills is very important.
Progress of Skill India mission
As per the Press Information Bureau, more than one crore youth have joined the program and are benefitting from it. The government has signed Memorandums of Cooperation (MoCs) with countries like Japan, Russia, and the U.K. However, according to many economists and the industrial data, joblessness is on the rise. Though the number of people who acquired skills increased manifolds, only a few of them could get jobs. It implies that the government has to focus on job creation urgently.
We can conclude that the schemes are excellent and very much required. But we need a central mechanism to monitor their implementation and track the outcomes.
There will be a shortage of 55 million workforces in the world by 2022 whereas India will have a surplus of 47 million workforces. It is the time we need to start looking at the requirement of international organizations where India can become the source for hiring people. The Skill India Mission is looking for making India the skill capital of the world. India may have not become the superpower but it has the potential to achieve the human resource superpower.
