Is Govt’s Focus On Skills, Rather Than Education, Justified For Employability And 'Achche Din'?

The new government in the direction of the venerable PM Narendra Modi recognized skills as an overriding factor of the future employability in the 21st century, more than academic education.

The NaMo government has projected to boost up the education and skilling sector. The augmented emphasis on the skill-oriented learning by setting up the ‘centers of excellence’, better accreditation of vocational training courses, and the increased expenses on the secondary and tertiary education has elicited the stirring response from the masses. However, the substandard development plans for the higher education has rooted displeasure, which forced ample to question the credibility of the solemn promises of ‘Achche Din’.

Let us see how promising these plans of the government are:

A Glance At The Statistics:

The document on the framework of the implementation of the National Mission for Skill Development states that India has shocking 2-7% well-trained, skilled workforce contrasting to the formally trained staff of 96% in South Korea, 80% in Japan, 68% in Germany and 52% in the USA.

As per records, over the next decade India will have the manpower of ballpark 4-5 crore with an impressive scholarly knowledge, sitting redundant, and it is anticipated that the industry is going to require nearly 150 million skilled workers between 2012 and 2022.

Among the rising working populace of the country, more than 54% will be below the age of 25 years as far as figures are concerned. Hence, if the country focuses on providing the youthful manpower with the skills, creativity and ability, and not just the degrees, it can tackle the global challenges and fill the shortfall of working youth in the aging world.

Does Employability Asks For Skills?

"The most successful chief minister of Maharashtra was Vasant Dada Patil and he was an angootha-chhap. Skills matter, not degrees. At the end of the day, people would judge a politician for his work and commitment."- said Vidya Thakur (MLA, BJP)

In no way, the government is down-rating the significance of education, however, the inculcation of the skills bring out the talent and the true essence of that education, which positively factors the employability. The industry can’t afford to pay for the refined qualifications an individual is having, but for the knowledge of utilizing those qualifications for economy’s good. For that reason, India must emphasize on scaling up the skill training efforts to match the demands of employers or induce the entrepreneurship qualities, and drive economic growth.

Plans For The Course:

The government schemes to raise competition, develop the talent, improve productivity, and thus direct the Indian youth to get blue-collar jobs and other employment opportunities. The aim is to provide the training and skill development to 500 million youth of our country by 2020, covering every town & parish, and in the favor, a new program ‘Skill India’, has been launched this year, 2015.

The training programs would be aligned for the traditional occupations such as farmer, tailor, carpenter, weaver, and likes, & the new areas like real estate, designing, jewelry, construction etc. Also, they will expand till the international level so that our youth can meet the demands of the countries like US, Japan, China & others. Government & non-government organizations, corporate educational institutions, academic institutions, and society would lend a hand in this campaign so that superior results are achieved in the shortest time span.

The Prime Minister believes this initiative will lead to the global popularity of the ITIs (Industrial Training Institutes) for producing the quality skilled manpower in the 21st century, just like the IIT’s success in the 20th century. We hope that the campaign stands true to the PM’s belief so that no youth in the country is made redundant.

Mr. Anurag Gupta writes on behalf of Placementindia.com, one of the leading job portal for Jobs & Career Development. His creative articles always encourages people for online job search.