Employment Generation and Skill Development in India-Trends and

Challenges
The Great Indian Hope Trick
In the 1800s a story of startling magic trick emerged from India, where a
street performer plays his flute over a coiled rope, which a climb dancing like
a cobra to a great height. The boy assistant scrambles to the top of the rope
and disappears the magicians calls for the boy, grabs a knife and scramble
up the rope, vanishes too. Then a limb , torso and head fallout of sky. The
magician reappears, reassembles and covers the body part and from the
bloody sheet the boy reappears grinning .One hundred years later the Great
Indian Rope Trick was exposed as hoax , imagination of western visitors
In recent years visitors have been returning from India in a similar state of
awe. But India now risks falling for its own hype.
Indian policy makers cannot assume that demographics will triumph and
problems such as
lack of investment in agriculture, infrastructure,
manufacturing, healthcare, education &skills development and lack mission
mode implementation of core critical projects by state & central Government
to generate jobs for 500 million Indians in the next 15 years are just
sideshows instead of nation building challenges.(Exhibit-2- India Vision for
education &skill development -2022)

Skill Development -- The Context

Skill development is critical for achieving faster, sustainable and inclusive
growth on the one
hand and for providing decent employment opportunities to the growing
young population on the other. The demographic window of opportunity
available to India would make India the skill capital of world. India would be
in position to meet the requirement of technically trained manpower not only
for its growing economy but also of the aging advanced economies of the
world. The young population is an asset only if it is educated, skilled and
finds productive employment. If this happens then nations dream of realising
Indias potential to grow at 10 per cent or more per annum for a substantial
period of time can become a reality. Boston Consultancy Groups study in
2007 had clearly indicated that by 2020 while India will have surplus of 56
million working people, the rest of the world will encounter a shortage of 47

million working people. (see Exhibit 1) However, skilling this large and
growing young population from an exceedingly small base would be a big
challenge for India.

Exhibit 1-

Indias labour surplus47 million by 2020

Exhibit 2--Vision India @ 75 (Year 2022) for education

&skill development

India achieves 100% functional literacy

India builds 700 million globally employable workforce, comprising 200 million
university graduates and 500 million vocationally skilled people
India develops world class infrastructure to become a global hub for knowledge
creation, talent development and entrepreneurial incubation
India sets global standards and becomes a scale provider of value based learnercentric education, skills development and professional educators through industry
partnerships

Skill developmentChallenges
Skills are a necessary condition for improving incomes and
being fit for a job.
They don't create jobs by themselves

1-Job creation
What is inexplicable is that while the economic discourse focuses on the
growth rate, current account deficit and the rupee, there is almost no
discussion about jobs. We have regular disclosures of numbers like the IIP
and inflation, but little on the number of jobs created or lost during the
month or quarter or annum.
Data on jobs - apart from being a great economic indicator - can also become
a potent political argument. Today 20% of the electorate consists of first time
voters, a group most analysts believe could influence the outcome of the
2014 polls. What these young people care about, above almost everything
else, is jobs. Any political combine that talks about jobs: the numbers it has
created or are planning to create through its economic programme would
strike a chord with young voters.
Very low creation of jobs from 2004 onwards
Year 1999-2000----------Labour force
year 2004-2005-----Labour force
Net addition by NDA
years(1999-2004)

396.8 million
457.5 million
60.8 million-----6 crore in 5

year 2009-2010---labour force

460.2 million

Net addition to jobs by UPA -1----years(2004-2009)

2.7 million or

27 lakhs in 5

Exhibit 3- sector wise Job creation In India 1999-2009

2Skill
Challenges

development---Economics

of

Supply

side-

Lack of Institutional mechanismto deliver skill standards

For 30 critical industry sectors across India there is need to create 1200
learner centric NOS(national occupational standard) aligned content which
does not exist at all .For these 30 critical industry sectors across key

district town in India in order to effectively assess and certify candidates

nation needs 50,000 certified assessors which do not exist at all. In
order to skill 240 lakh youth every year(youth which are entering job market
every year) across key district &block towns nation needs 6,00,000 skilled
&certified trainers across 30 sectors and 1200 courses which do not exist
at all.

Government funding mechanismMORD (ministry of rural development )which funds skill development
programm for skilling BPL rural youth for employability ,pays to skill training
suppliers funds 670 days after completion of work for skilling youth , as
against stated norm of 30 days of payment cycle, such attitude towards skill
development partner& payment patterns
by bureaucracy
makes
Government initiatives mired in implementation bottlenecks and nation
achieves abysmal performance .Government has done nothing to improve
such a situation
Image of Skill worker
There are many cultural, economic &caste factors which force youth not to
skill himself/herself. Most Skill workers are still considered People with least
respectable jobs in the society.
No single standards multiple bodies
After many starts-finish government is yet to implement one single skill
standard acceptable to industry-state governments-various ministries(21 to
be precise).Since 2008 nation is planning to implement one skill standard
called NSQF(national Skill qualification Framework)
In short despite whatever anyone say we as nation have failed badly to
generate jobs, we have very poor institutional mechanism to produce NOS
aligned learner centric content-trainers &assessors, very poor social image
of a skill worker &lethargic government skill implementation mechanism.

Skill developmentImplementation models

1-Community Colleges

Skill Implementation at Community College - Partner Structure

Joining the dots
Central &state government university can achieve their objectives through
a network of numerous partners to enable it to reach out to the millions of
youth across the country who need and deserve a good skill education.by
enlisting partners with very specific roles & responsibilities as enumerated
below-

Vertical Anchors
Vertical anchor is an entrepreneurial partner and holds experience &
expertise related to a specific industry vertical. The role of the Vertical
Anchor should be to conduct a skill gap analysis and geography mapping
across the country (or geographies assigned to it). It shall further suggest the
various skills for which courses need to be conducted. It shall also suggest
the types of courses and the durations required. Subsequently the Vertical
Anchor shall be responsible for creating content for the courses to be
conducted and to get them approved by the Central or State University. The

Vertical Anchor shall also identify potential Hub partners, facilitate their
registration and handhold them in execution of the entire training
implementation process. It shall also conduct train the trainer courses for the
HUBs. If it is not already in existence, it will also develop and update syllabus
as per the AICTE Community college and NSQF models all other learning
material to be approved by Central or state University for various
programmes it plans to start. It will focus on quality of course and shall
constantly monitor conduct of training.

HUB Partner (Learning Centre)

The Hub Partner (Learning Centre) is a company/ institute/ training centre
and shall provide the classroom training infrastructure in a location and also
provide theoretical training to the trainees/students. This includes, among
others, infrastructure facilities, trainers, course material, necessary
machineries, operating systems and software to conduct the theoretical or
classroom based training. They shall be responsible for mobilization of
students and conduct of assessment tests.
Skill Knowledge Partner
SKPs would be industry partners identified by hub. The industry partner will
support the programme at the most basic level by providing a platform to
train the students of Central or state University on-the-job for a particular
skill course. The SKP shall be thus registered as per norms & process jointly
agreed with the AICTE.

2-Vocational Skills at Schools

As a nation we need to nurture this human capital with maximum focus on
schools by initiating programmes that would provide the youth with skills
thereby preparing them for real time professional and social challenges

Parentage and location have become important in getting jobs. But this
tragedy can be ended by reforms in education, employment and
employability. The 2014 elections will have many first-time voters who have
no memory of pre-reform India. But politics is made of stories. Indian
politicians are short of narratives: so how about a jobs one, which appeals to
the young and does no harm to the economy. Polls can galvanize action,
political consensus is not a prerequisite for policymaking, and the only thing
worse than being wrong is being confused. But why is the jobs agenda a
policy orphan?