The NSQF training in English, Employability and Entrepreneurship (EEE) module sounds good but might not be able to create a resilient, skilled workforce which meets domestic and international standards and requirements. Let us admit that there are serious gaps in our endeavours to supply skilled workforce to the industry, notwithstanding multiple training capsules we have for the trainees who are first time learners and reskilling for the trainees or existing workforce who have already undergone formal or informal skilling and need additional skill sets.

Upon successful completion of assessment, candidates are provided placement assistance by training providers. Apart from providing training according to the National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF), TCs also impart training in soft skills, entrepreneurship, financial and digital literacy.

The STT component imparted at PMKVY Training Centres (TC) is expected to benefit candidates who are either school or college dropouts or unemployed. To add, every year 25 lakh youth are imparted training at various Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and 25 lakh youth are being trained under fee-based programmes. More than 14 lakh people have been trained under Jan Shaksham Sansthan (JSS).ĭata are quite impressive. Over 7.5 lakh youth have been trained across industries under the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS). Since the inception of the programme in 2015, as on 31 December 2021, 4.22 lakh candidates were trained under the Short Term Training (STT) and 7.17 lakh candidates were oriented under the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) in the north eastern states. Under the PMKVY-3.0, over 1.36 crore youth are being trained across the country. We need short and medium term strategies to fill the gaps so far as the demands for skilled workforce are concerned. It will certainly yield positive results but only in the long term. The new National Education Policy-2020 (NEP-2020) has rightly stressed on vocational education right from the school level. The results are encouraging but certainly not in commensurate with the needs of the industry. For a sustainable economy and inclusive development, we need to arm our masses with skills for which multiple initiatives are underway as a part of the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY). OJT plays a vital role in building the competencies of employees to perform their job in an effective manner and can hold better positions in future with efficient capabilities, which increase the organisational productivity significantly. It is not a healthy situation when we are aspiring to be a $5 trillion economy by 2030. In fact, the first six months’ salaries qualify to be stipends for employees during which they learn skills and start making positive contributions. The situation is quite alarming in the unorganised sector but we must extend kudos to our traders, entrepreneurs and industrialists who are contributing so significantly to the country’s economic empowerment by investing hugely in the skill upgradation of their workforce while on job. The ground realities are certainly not encouraging at all, and hence there is no scope for any kind of complacency on the part of all stakeholders. The report also pointed out that out of more than five lakh final-year bachelors students aged 18-29 who were surveyed, around 54 percent of them were found to be unemployable.

It also said that almost 1.25 million new workers - aged 15-29 - were projected to join India’s workforce ‘every month’ through 2022. Further, only about two per cent of the workforce had formal vocational training, and only 9 per cent had non-formal, vocational training. Around 31 per cent were illiterate and only 13 per cent had a primary education, and only 6 per cent were college graduates. Around 92 per cent of them were in the informal sector. The report estimated that India had about 468 million people in its workforce. In 2018, a New Delhi-based economic think tank - National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) - brought out a report. As per India Skills Report-2022 by Wheebox, only 48.7 percent of total youth in the country is employable and the highest employable age group is 22 to 25 years. It underscores the need for on job training (OJT), which makes things easier not only for job seekers but job providers as well when most of the workforce which enters the job market is devoid of employable skills. The quotient of multifaceted deprivation and struggle for survival force the majority of the people to get into gainful jobs at whatever compensation is available and supplement the family’s income. India’s socio-economic dynamics are entirely different.

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