Raising the bar on skilling

There are a lot of young people in India who want to get a qualification that will set them up to earn well and progress professionally.

There are a lot of employers who say they can't get enough qualified people. Despite a lot of high-powered talk and action by many entities over the past few decades, the chasm between the demand and supply for relevant capability remains unbridged, and young India remains unable to achieve its desired potential.

Fewer cooks make for better broth There are too many national initiatives running in parallel, each having its own take on what the job to be done is and how it should be accomplished. The National Skill Development Corporation and Skill India use the word "skilling" and fall under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

The National Education Policy sits in the Ministry of Education and prescribes "vocational education". The network of Industrial Training Institutes (ITIS) and Industrial Training Centres (ITC) describe their focus as "industrial training" and imparting "vocational trades".

At the same time, there is an increase in enrolment in degree courses in colleges, but evaluation reports point to poor quality education resulting in low employability. Meanwhile, a young person who wants to be a nurse, paramedic, crane driver, car mechanic, or work in tourism or media content doesn't know what to study or where to study. Even if they identify some private training college, they cannot afford it (nor can they get a loan for it).