In September 2017, I went to a small\nvillage in Maharashtra called Georai as part of my semester there. I came\nacross a particular case of unemployment which, I later realised, is rather\ncommon throughout India. Young boys from marginal families go out for higher\neducation and better job prospects only to return to farming because of\nunemployment. We also went to the local hospital, which faced a severe shortage\nof doctors and nurses because the youth were not skilled enough to be employed\nin the hospital. Thus, the conclusion is very visible yet invisible. According\nto the 2015 Report of National Policy for Skill Development and\nEntrepreneurship, India faces an acute crisis in Skill Development. The report\ngoes on to say that the percentage of youth who have undergone formal skill\ntraining in countries like Japan, South Korea, UK, Russia are 80%, 96%, 68%\nand 75% respectively. In India, even\nafter so many skill development schemes since 2009, only 4.69% of the workforce\nhas undergone formal training. But before analysing statistics on Skill\nDevelopment one needs to know the meaning and the importance of skill development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Skill Development is the process by\nwhich Newton finds his apple again and again till the time he realises that it\nis gravity that is causing the fall. This means, Skill Development is the way\nto acknowledge the skills, which youth acquire, and to certify it to make it\nmore professional and formal. This means a house electrician may have learnt\nher skills through trial and error method but by developing her skills, the\nwork is given more formality and respect. Similarly, the case of the sons of\nGeorai farmers which I presented in the introduction, would not have returned\nto their farmlands if they would have got opportunities to learn the skills of\na ward boy or a nurse. With more staff in the hospital, there would be better\nservices, which would lead to lesser patients and a healthier workforce and\nbetter job prospects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anirudh Krishna in his book \u2018The\nBroken Ladder\u2019 talks about the progress ladder one gets in life to move up.\nThis ladder of opportunities is available for every rich student but when it\ncomes to poor students, the ladder is broken or sometimes the ladder is not\nthere. This means when you are poor there is no way you will grow beyond a\ncertain point because of the broken ladder like the returning youth of Georai\nand sometimes, there is no aspiration to \nmove up or progress because of the social conditions like a Dalit girl\nin India\u2019s heartland. With skill development, a step in the ladder for upward\nmobility is created. Shri Mahila Griha Udyog\u2019s Lijjat Papad is a shining\nexample of a women\u2019s cooperative who have leveraged their traditional skills of\nmaking papads which is a success story in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG)\nsector. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to a National Skill\nDevelopment Corporation report on domestic work, there is a rising need for\ndomestic helps in India because of a rise in double income families where both\nthe husband and wife go out for work. \nThis creates an acute need for domestic help in the household to look\nafter children, aged parents etc. But\nthe reality is that Indian domestic workers face abuses, low wages and most\nimportantly informality in their jobs, which means the aspiration ladder is\nbroken in the first or second rung itself. However, if formal training is\nimparted and a certification is provided after training on domestic household\nwork, then a certain dignity and legitimacy is attached with household work\nwhich removes it from the realm of the informal sector. It provides a ladder\nwhich according to the NSDC report shows\na clear progression from being a household helper in the kitchen, to a cook, to\nsecuring employment in the hospitality industry, and so on and so forth. Thus, there is a clear ladder for a person to\nclimb on and realise her aspirations from life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Skill\nDevelopment should not be limited to the apparent \u2018menial\u2019 jobs of the country.\nIt has to spread throughout colleges and universities, even schools to realise\nits potential. If schools and colleges taught say, Carpentry then there would\nbe more carpenters in the market and according to the basic rule of business,\nmore carpenters would mean more competition and better results. When a\ncandidate gets selected in a bank there is a 6-7 month training period in which\nthe new employee is made \u2018skilled\u2019. This is one of the countless examples to\nshow that skill training for jobs has been going on since ages. Sadly, this is\nonly limited to the middle and upper class to benefit from. The jobs of the\nlower classes have never witnessed any formal training. This has also to do\nwith a very deep down social barrier in the heart of the society for the poor.\nThe barrier is that generally people believe that the labour class jobs are\nmenial and do not require any teaching for the process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This belief may hold true but as easy as they seem, these jobs are\nalso inevitable. I see Skill Development not only as the way to improve the\nfinancial position of a person but more importantly, the social position. If I\nam a certified electrician then my daughters will see the amount of respect\ngiven to me in the society and will also aspire to be an electrician. This\nmakes me conclude with an encounter I had with an Australian couple in one of\nmy trips. They had come to explore India and in the conversation, they told me\nabout their love for travelling and how they have travelled many other\ncountries. International travel requires money and looking at their attire, I\nassumed they must be in some corporate or any other MNC only to realize from\nthe husband that he was a carpenter and the wife was an insurance agent. And\nthis luxury became possible because Australia focussed on Skill Development as\nmuch as India does in producing college degrees only. <\/s><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In September 2017, I went to a small village in Maharashtra called Georai as part of my semester there. I came across a particular case of unemployment which, I later realised, is rather common throughout India. Young boys from marginal families go out for higher education and better job prospects only to return to farming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":296,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions\/296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}