World Youth Skills Day 2023: Expediency of skills for youth of world’s youngest nation India
Prof. S. S. Somra, Department of Economics, Rajasthan University Jaipur-302004.
The theme of World Youth Skills Day 2023 is Skilling teachers, trainers and youth for a transformative future. It highlights the essential role that teachers, coaches and other educators play in providing young people with the skills to move into the labour market and become actively involved in their communities and societies. In 2014, the United Nations General Assembly declared 15 July as World Youth Skills Day to celebrate the strategic importance of skilling youth for employment, decent work and entrepreneurship. The General Assembly for the first time in 2013 expressed concern over the large number of unemployed youths globally, numbering 7.45 crore, most of whom live in developing countries. Since then, the day commemorates the importance of skilling the youth for employability, suitable work and entrepreneurship. Skill development and jobs for youth figure prominently in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 4.4 calls for a significant increase in the number of youth and adults with relevant skills, while target 8.6 calls for a significant reduction in the percentage of young people who are not in employment, education or training. The theme draws attention to providing youth with skills that can make them resilient to emerging challenges, improve their productivity in jobs, enhance employability and prepare them for the future. Every year on this day, on World Youth Skills Day, the United Nations Headquarters organizes events to encourage youth to talk about the importance of skills training.
Government of India launched Skill India on the occasion of first World Youth Skills Day in 2015 with four landmark schemes, National Skill Development Mission, National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship 2015, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) Scheme and Skill Loan Scheme. Till now its three phases have been completed. Till now its three phases have been completed. In the general budget of the financial year 2023-24, it has been announced to start its fourth phase. Under Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana 4.0, the work of skilling and providing skills to lakhs of youth of the country will be done. Along with this, emphasis will also be given on industry partnership, on-the-job training and courses aligned with industry needs. For this, 30 skill centres’ will also be opened across the country where they will be trained in a better way. The budget for education has been increased by about 8%. Rs 1.12 lakh crore has been received for education. Whereas in 2022 this figure was 1.04 lakh crore. 44,094 crore has been received for higher education and 68,804 crore for school education. But the share of education budget in GDP is stagnant at 2.9 per cent. Modern courses like Coding, AI, Robotics, Mechatronics, IOT, 3-D have also been included for PM Kaushal Vikas Yojana 4.0, along with this they are to be trained on printing soft skills and drones. Special care has been taken to empower the youth and help them realize the dream of the ‘Amrit Generation’. Emphasis has been laid on preparing youth power according to the needs of various industries. For this, under the ambitious National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme, 47 lakh youth will be made skilled by providing financial help. Equal importance has been given to education and skills in the New Education Policy-2020. It has paved the way for integration of schooling and skilling, horizontal and vertical mobility through the National Credit Framework and has redefined India’s skilling ecosystem. Training for traditional jobs, industry partnerships and courses tailored to industry needs are also included. While investment in human capital is critical to realizing sustained economic growth, high technical and vocational skills can improve the competitiveness of economies. In sync with the Sustainable Development Goals, the National Youth Policy-2021 envisages a 10-year vision for youth development in India to unleash the potential of youth in driving economic growth. Since we are moving forward with the dream of becoming a developed nation by the year 2047. According to the recent report published by the United Nations, we have left behind China in terms of population. There is a large segment of youth power in India, about 32%, which needs to be skilled. In the coming times, 25% of the global working population will come from India. In such a situation, unless we skill, re-skill and up-skill our young demographics and prepare them for future work, we will not be able to discharge our global responsibilities. The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship has entered into a Government-to-Government Agreement with a total of 11 countries including Australia, Belarus, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Qatar, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom in the field of skill development and vocational education training. Government MoUs have been signed. Apart from this, several MoUs have been signed with Germany, Japan, Singapore, UAE, Gulf Cooperation Council countries to provide skills to the youth of India. Singapore’s High Commissioner to India Simon Wong said that we have close ties with India and Singapore is the first country to integrate UPI through its fast payment system Pay Now. Also, a few days ago the Indian rocket PSLV put two satellites of Singapore into orbit. He said that there is a huge opportunity to expand this cooperation in the field of skilling. Despite these programs and plans, data from the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy showed that in October 2022, India’s unemployment rate rose to 7.8 percent from 6.4 percent in September. In 2019-20, out of 54.2 crore people, only 7.3 crore or about 13 per cent received any kind of vocational training and only 3 per cent were formally skilled. Digital skills are needed by 2.7 crore people representing 7 percent of the workforce in India. By comparison, 24 percent of workers in China, 52 percent in the United States, 68 percent in Britain, and 80 percent in Japan are skilled.
According to UN demographic estimates, there are 1.9 arab (billion) young people (15–29 years) in the world. Twenty percent of whom, or about 42 crore, youth live in India. In terms of India’s own population, the latest projections show that out of a total population of 142.86 crore in 2023, youth constitute about 27 per cent, while about 64 crore people, 68% are of working age (15-64 years). India is expected to add 18.5 crore more people to the working age group by 2050, resulting in 22 per cent growth in the global workforce over the next three decades. The organized sector in India employs only 7-8% of the people, the unorganized sector employs more than 92 percent of the workforce in India. The lack of employment raises concerns about the standard of education offered in India’s educational institutions and the quality of technical and vocational education and training. In a globalized world, where competition between firms and industries has intensified, workers are required to possess a high level of skills that enables them to engage in innovation, improve the quality of products/services and significantly increase their efficiency in production processes. Enable to increase the extent. However, there is an urgent need for skilling and upskilling of people in the country to take advantage of such opportunities. Skill development and enhancing skill capabilities is a major challenge to unlock the potential of a USD 1 lakh crore digital economy by 2025. By 2030, India is expected to create 23 lakhs additional jobs, second only to the US, which is expected to create 27 lakhs additional jobs. Estimates suggest that investment in skill upgradation can potentially boost the global economy by US$ 6.5 lakh crore and India’s economy by US$ 57 thousand crore by 2030. In the end, it is a very good thing that we are moving forward with the goal of developed India, but for this the government needs to do more work at its level. Since we are talking about human development of India, talking about making it skilful . For this, first of all, we have to increase the investment in the field of public health and education. If we look at the World Human Development Index, our rank is 132 in the list of 191 countries. In this, it is mainly seen that what is the progress of any country in the field of human development. Healthy life and education, living standard etc. are seen in this. As far as the increasing population is concerned, half of the population is of women. To achieve the goal of a developed India, the participation of women has to be increased which has come down from 25 per cent to 19 per cent in the last few years. Apart from this, it is also very important to re-skill and up-skill after giving a skill, because the technical competition is increasing in the country and the world and this should be a lifelong process. We need to strengthen our human development capital, in this we have to work to improve our ranking, currently we are at 116th position. In this also the data of health and education is taken.