INDIA: A SKILL EMERGENCY India and its vast demography have all the reasons to cheer home about.

In the next two decades, our working population swells much more than any other country in the world. Our YOUNG population presents a never before opportunity for growth transition with this tsunami of workforce generating those trillions in global business, contributing to a more prosperous nation. The next two decades will see INDIA adding over 200 million people to its working age of 18 to 60 years. 64% of the countrys population will thus be in this bracket. The same period would see US with nil net additions and Chinas workforce shrink by 100 million. Our per capita annual wages would translate into Rs. 4500/- per month by end of 2011 giving hope to those millions who have been subject to a century of penury. In the face of global shortages of skilled labour, INDIA could be poised to supply skills to the World. Demand for Skilled Labour (in millions) by 2015
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The National Skill Development Policy puts the need for skilled hands in INDIA at 530 million over the next decade. Today INDIA produces 3 million skilled workers annually. The growth transition calls for producing 53 million annually. A HUMANGOUS ASK ? The National Skill Development Corporation has been entrusted the task of producing a 150 million strong skilled workforce over the next decade. This is assuming remaining 380 million will be covered by the current assembly of Institutions. AGAIN A NEAR IMPOSSIBLE ASK ? Inspite of the nos and opportunity being in our favour the task appears so daunting, dotted by innumerous ifs & buts that even to start getting things readied for work poses a helpless scenario. Still lets get down to see the problem in pieces and arrange for a getaway. Firstly the humongous shortage of creation. To produce 53 million from a mere 3 million a year calls for deployment of huge resources from the state as well as private

entrepreneurship. NSDC has rightly committed 667 Crs to support private & government aided skill initiatives. A step in the right direction though with less mass. In order to kick start a mass skill revolution we need dozens of Skill Management companies with ambitions of training millions in all vocations across the country. This revolution has all the likes and needs of the Industrial revolution that set in the early 90s and was responsible for the exponential growth in our industrial capacity. This has to be supplemented by a stronger but less intervening National Skill development policy to make incubation thrive. Skill development has to be made a serious business but an affordable one for the general masses. Industry should also align themselves with this objective and promote such institutions. They need to see the exponential equation quite clearly and leverage the opportunity by deploying or providing resources. NSDC estimates Indias Skill Management market at $22 billion. The quantity crises being dealt with, now the second one that of QUALITY has to be met. Having looked at creation we need to look at the degree of deployability of this creation. A Nasscom-McKinsey study in 2005 had already shocked INDIA on its employee quality. It said just one out of four engineers were employable, or could be taken up for job training. The employability situation has worsened since then. Nasscom says employability in IT in 2011 is still 26% while in growing sectors like BPOs/KPOs, it is avg 12%. About 95% of Indians coming out of education system are not employable. The current system of education lacks focus on creating and building employability. The vocational training arena which is strong in developed countries is very nascent in India. 85% of students in developed countries do vocational training as compared to 5% in India. Unfortunately, the universe of employable youth is slowly becoming the universe of endangered species. We are in an SKILL EMERGENCY situation. Nurturing skill sets is falling short of enterprise needs by huge margins. An overall lack of emphasis on Life Skills is causing a degenerating effect on all growth factors in the country. The two greatest concerns of employers today are finding good workers and training them. The difference between the skills needed on the job and those possessed by applicants, sometimes called the skills-gap, is of real concern to human resource managers and business owners looking to hire competent employees. Most discussions concerning todays workforce eventually turn to employability skills. Finding workers who have employability or job readiness skills that help them fit into and remain in the work environment is a real problem. Employers need reliable, responsible workers who can solve problems and who have the social skills and attitudes to work together with other workers. Creativity, once a trait avoided by employers who used a cookie cutter system, is now prized among employers who are trying to create the empowered, high performance workforce needed for

competitiveness in todays marketplace. Employees with these skills are in demand and are considered valuable human capital assets to companies.
To be employed is to be at risk, to be employable is to be secure. Peter

Hawkins Employability skills refer to specific skills essential for employment. These are the critical tools and traits required to perform tasks at workplace. The needs of employability skills differ from country to country and from sector to sector and from time to time. Employers will usually try to help valued employees seek and get more advanced training, thus widening the gap between those with higher order skills and those possessing basic academic skills alone. Mere academic abilities alone will not be adequate. What is essential is something beyond academic domain such as Basic competency, problem solving skills, initiative and enterprise, learning, self-management etc. When applicants possess these skills then it becomes easier for employers to train other technical skills easily. To sum, both educational institutions and industry should work together for enhancing employability skills as it is rightly said that you need to clap with both hands to get the results. This is also the only way for sustainable industry growth. All this needs education reforms, innovative skill financing, labour reforms. A paradigm shift from classical physics (discrete systems) to quantum physics (everything is interrelated) This package of quantity & quality if readied in time can deliver INDIA the skill edge. If we can tackle the 3Es- Education, Employability and Employment we can reap huge demographic dividends or else play into the hands of demographic disasters.