Among all the developing countries around the globe, India holds various advantages as compared to other countries. We have a healthy entrepreneurial customs that attract global investors. Supportive government policies with the perfect blending of the young, skilled and passionate workforce in plenty. When this huge number is merged with a strong business and institutional history & experience, its an incredible combination for a world-class competitive economy.
Still, unfortunately, there is one big challenge always standing in front of us, our unskilled labor force, and there is a huge gap between demand and supply of skilled workforce. Which needs to be handled with speed, agility and on a war footing.
Various innovative techniques are in use to provide a concrete solution for filling up the skills set. Some proposed solution for this skills gap issue changes in educational courses, new methods of learning and few suggestions to start industry oriented courses as well. But one thing which can handle this huge skill gap issue is a technological solution.
Webinar Based Learning Programs – These programs are the great alternative to the traditional classroom-based learning methods. One thing which needs to keep in mind that these webinars should not be the exact replica of classroom programs. The webinar should have creative content and create an interactive learning module.
Simulations Based Learning Programs – This is the latest one among the skill learning programs and it is also considered in the future of learning programs. By creating a virtual situation with different versions of real-world issues, the learners will learn by looking into the simulation, creating mistakes and finally learning from them. These simulation-based programs have the highest rate of accuracy and they are highly engaging and provide in-depth analysis of participants’ action.
Video-Based Learning Programs – With the various surveys, online video has well passed in the total number of minutes watched on it as compared to social media. Video-based learning provides a long-term return as well because these videos can be used multiple times until the content remains relevant and useful.
Social Media Based Learning Programs – One can avoid social media completely and social media traits should be used while creating content, including personal profiles and online behavior.
So now we should learn what can be the solution in these technical methods. The need of the hour is to create a smart national-level model, which can determine the set of required skills with the help of cognitive technology, and use that data in predictive analytics to let the industry business houses government bodies and other stakeholders. This will create a big database with an intelligent matching engine on the basis of continuous feedback. This process will make sure to keep the demand & supply on the balanced side with clear projections on the future outlook.
This Huge technical search engine will have multiple members like government bodies and corporate, training organizations, etc. to collect the data, process it and finally produced to the relevant agencies to take the future course of action
Stakeholders – All the involved parties
- Private sector organizations include corporate trainers, employers, entrepreneurs, and hiring companies.
- Public sector Schemes like NSDC, SSC, PMEGP, SDMS, Skill India, Digital India.
- Skilled Professionals
- Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship
- Vocational training Institutes with the updated technical syllabus
Inputs – This determines the data which the engine will process.
- Job opportunities in various industries
- Skill demands in different sectors
- Training programs & criteria to attend them
- Targeted skilled supply
Output – To help the employers understand the availability of workforce
- Forecast report for trainers and employers
- Review & Feedback reports
- Trends in employment & skills-predictive reports
- Real-time reports
Components Of The Technical Solution For Skills Gap In India
Reliable Database: Currently there are few reliable data sources available on job demand. Like NSDC’s SDMS so one needs to use them to take the inputs on the real-time basis.
Data Preparation & Processing: With so much of data, high-level data interfaces will be required and data refinement, relocation, and data warehousing will need to be used to properly supply it to the analytics.
Data Provider: The primary component will be the matching engine which will do the matching process on the basis of various demand parameters like business sectors, various state, geographical location, technical requirements, and skills etc.) And skilled workforce supply parameter like top skills, sets, availability of the force, reviews & ratings,.
After performing the matching process based on different parameters, it will show the following types of results:
- Perfect match – The most closed ones
- Approximate match – Fitting with some of the parameters
- Recommended match – Based on artificial intelligence
Reports: The matching system will publish the different type of reports based on the different matches between the employers and skilled professionals, inserted in the system. Cloud-based systems can be used to provide the assistance to the remote areas
Here are some examples of how this technical help will assist the trainees and unemployed in the remote villages to fill up their skill gape as per industry requirements.
Let’s take the case of Shyam & Sujata, the brother-sister duo who are from Bikaner, Rajasthan.
Their parents put so many efforts in their small brick & pot making facility and to make the living needs on daily basis. Both Shyam & Sujata assist their parents in the brick field every day and are keen to bring in the latest innovation, technologies, and infrastructure changes to help increase the production. With this objective in mind, they have completed the IT/ ITes training in soil testing technology at the NSDC training center and are looking for jobs in factories who are producing a different type of high-quality ceramic titles.
With the automated job catcher in place, Shyam & Sujatha can go to the ministry website which has information on demands by skills, sector and geographical location. Based on the inputs provided by Shyam and Sujata, the system will help them in finding a perfect job profile or recommend a suitable career path. This will also ensure that Shyam & Sujata should get a job in their area of skills, expertise, and interest and also have an opportunity to grow up the career path in the relevant areas.
It is very crucial to remember that technical help can only provide the medium to overcome budgetary issues and accessibility problem. The real success of the skill learning program can only be achieved when the information and methods are used creatively to make sure that the participants learn and fill up their skill gap.
