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Editorials
Skilling the Nation
Rajen Kumar
Aug 2010
Aug 2010
How do we go about 'skilling' the teeming millions of India is a big question now taking rounds of the corridors of power today.
Skill Development is the now buzz word every where. But for sure, we know well that 'skill' is single most requisite which will determine which way our industry, especially the micro and small sector is set head.
The government has recently set up National Skill Development Corporation giving it a responsibility and a stupendous task of making a blue print for skill development.
The Corporation is a first-of-its-kind Public Private Partnership (PPP) in India set up to facilitate the development and upgrading of the skills of the growing Indian workforce through skill training programs. A large part of the organisation's efforts are directed at the private sector and towards developing the skills in the unorganised sector in India. The body has since not made any tangible headway.
Indian economy is one of the most fast growing in the world. Yet we have many challenges to face. A nation with a whopping population of 1200 Million affords employment to 500 million. Of the 90% workforce in the unorganized sector, over 60% are unemployed in rural areas alone which make our task of skilling the nation difficult.
Unemployment is a serious problem with multitude dimensions. Illiteracy, vocational fitness, technological and economic reasons are the factors which keep our millions workless. Every year India adds to her population afresh and almost 5 million of them become work-ready.
India requires a large and skilled workforce and blatant lack of quality trainers and training institutes has impeded the growth in our micro and small sector. All skill development efforts have to be initiated at the grassroots level lest all our efforts go in vain. The MSEs sector has the rural industry as the major and a deciding component. Our primary goal should be to foster our rural or micro sector's participation in any skill development programme that we initiate.
NSDC's target of skilling 500 million people in a little more than a decade from now appears too ambitious a task as working of the PPP-driven corporation has yet not drawn any pragmatic work plan and runs the risk of leaving the bottom millions behind.
Raising and utilizing the vast infrastructure – setting up training institutes, skills centers for rural areas, monitoring and upgrading the sick and decaying technical centers, building a force of trainers for the trainers is a massive task. For NSDC, working on a PPP model may be an experiment. The future may belong to working on the PPP mode for governance in the industry and elsewhere but making ready millions with skills and training to generate employment to bring about economic prosperity for the nation is another thing.
1 Comments >>
Sunder
16 Aug 2010 (06:14:37)
Very right observations indeed.
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