According to UNESCO, “Youth” is best understood as a period of transition from the dependence of childhood to adulthood independence and awareness of our interdependence as members of a community. Youth is a more fluid category than a fixed age-group. However, age is the easiest way to define this group, particularly in relation to education and employment.
Skills and knowledge are the driving forces of economic growth and social development in a country. As opposed to developed countries, where the percentage of the skilled workforce is between 60% and 90% of the total workforce, India records a low 5% of the workforce (20-24 years) with formal vocational skills.
Realising the importance, more than 20 Ministries/Departments run 70 plus schemes for skill development in the country. The National Skill Development Mission launched by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship on July 15, 2015, aims to create convergence across sectors and States in terms of skill training activities. Besides consolidating and coordinating skilling efforts, it also aims to expedite decision making across sectors to achieve skilling at scale with speed and standards.
India is a developing country and around 50% of its population is under the age of 25. According to the UN report, India has the largest youth population in the world. So skill development becomes very important. It is a process in which youth of India is enabled and mobilized in a large number to take up outcome based skill training and become employable and earn their livelihood. As they are the future of the country it is very important that they have a job or they are doing something productive. It will also eradicate unemployment. There are many reasons for a country like India to invest in the skill development of the youth.
The National Employability Enhancement Mission seeks to:
Create an end-to-end implementation framework for skill development, which provides opportunities for lifelong learning.
This includes: incorporation of skilling in the school curriculum, providing opportunities for quality long and short-term skill training, by providing gainful employment and ensuring career progression that meets the aspirations of trainees. Align employer/industry demand and workforce productivity with trainees’ aspirations for sustainable livelihoods, by creating a framework for outcome-focused training. Establish and enforce cross-sectoral, nationally and internationally accepted standards for skill training in the country by creating a sound quality assurance framework for skilling, applicable to all Ministries, States and private training providers.
Build capacity for skill development in critical un-organized sectors (such as the construction sector, where there few opportunities for skill training) and provide pathways for re-skilling and up-skilling workers in these identified sectors, to enable them to transition into formal sector employment.
Ensure sufficient, high-quality options for long-term skilling, benchmarked to internationally acceptable qualification standards, which will ultimately contribute to the creation of a highly skilled workforce. Develop a network of quality instructors/trainers in the skill development ecosystem by establishing high-quality teacher training institutions.
Leverage existing public infrastructure and industry facilities for scaling up skill training and capacity building efforts.
Enable pathways for transitioning between the vocational training system and the formal education system, through a credit transfer system.
Promote convergence and coordination between skill development efforts of all Central Ministries/Departments/States/implementing agencies.
Support weaker and disadvantaged sections of society through focused outreach programmes and targeted skill development activities.
Propagate aspirational value of skilling among youth, by creating social awareness on the value of skill training.
