15th July is celebrated as the World Youth Skills Day. It has a big significance in today’s world when the problem of skilling has become a major concern for every developing economy.
According to United Nations, “Young people are almost three times more likely to be unemployed than adults and are continuously exposed to lower quality of jobs, greater labor market inequalities, and longer and more insecure school-to-work transitions. In addition, women are more likely to be underemployed and under-paid, and to undertake part-time jobs or work under temporary contracts.”
And this is the reason why education and training are key determinants of success in the labor market. But unfortunately, existing systems are failing to address the learning needs of many young people. Surveys show that a large number of youth have low levels of achievement in basic literacy and numeracy. And so Skills and jobs for youth feature prominently in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development of UN. It calls for a substantial increase in the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills.
Skilling in India…
In India, a wide gap between skill acquiring and education has been observed, as a result of which the youth are not able to get jobs of their own choice. In order to make a strong bridge to reduce this gap between the world of education and the world of work, there is an urgent need to equip the youth with the right skills for the job market. This should be a strategic concern of any organization today. The transition from schools and colleges to the world of jobs becomes smooth if the youth is provided adequate vocational training opportunities. Apart from being a knowledge-based society, India should strive to stress on skills.
“Good education with adequate vocational training and opportunities to learn new skills is what can provide the youth of any nation to become well-equipped and highly skilled workers. Education along with training for developing skills and emphasis on employability will strengthen the youth to take up the right career paths,” opines Rachit Jain, CEO – Youth4work.
Rachit Jain further says that it’s important to sharpen and learn new skills which can be transformed into another type of career which ensures competition in the workers. “Allowing ourselves to grow from what we entail in the world and how long the learning can go. Youth4work shares a similar vision and hence we support a well-designed skills training program by providing a platform that helps unemployed youth to test new skills, upgrade existing skills and find satisfactory employment. Considering the prevailing challenges, we believe that companies do not wish to hire the entry level workers directly. They outsource the entry level staff by appointing labor contractors and staffing companies. Also, individuals with some skills find it difficult to break through without a formal certification. We simplify such complexities.”
Youth4work has dusted out a space within itself to implement the initiative by the Government which aims at skilling and employing them. “Especially for rural India, we aid training centers to connect with companies to get job opportunities for skilled people. To have solid steps forward, we also have collaborated with IFFCO to develop a unique platform called ‘IFFCO YUVA’ to cater this part of the country,” he says. There however has been a major push by the current government to address the issue of skilling. Recently, to empower the working abilities of youth, the government has launched multi-skill program. It launched a campaign, Skill India under the tutelage of PM Narendra Modi on 15 July 2015. It aims to train over 40 crore (400 million) people in India in different skills by 2022 and includes various initiatives of the government like “National Skill Development Mission”, “National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, 2015”, “Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY)” and the “Skill Loan scheme”.
“The youth will learn various kinds of industry-relevant skills and many traditional skills which will help the youth in securing a better livelihood. This kind of training will not only strengthen the youth but also ensure that they learn to bear responsibility,” concludes Rachit.
