New Initiatives for Skill Development

Abstract

In the present era skill development has become vital for sustainable economic growth and eradication of unemployment especially for nations like India with emerging opportunities. With the emergence of new technologies and innovations in different parts of the world, it has become an essential for the governments to prioritize skill development to respond to the constantly changing dynamics of the world. The need of the hour is to provide a platform for skill development to the youth population. A country like India the challenge emanating from the demographic dividend would be to meet the labor market aspirations of the people at large and the youth in particular. Several studies have predicted that by 2020, India is set to become the world's youngest country with 64 per cent of its population in the working age group. Skill development can, therefore, be seen as the need of the hour. For this purpose the central government and state governments have taken many initiatives. Some of the important initiatives are Skill Development Programmes, Hunar, B. Voc courses, Subsidized loans to unemployed youth at low rate of interest, Industrial training Institutes, Promotion of small scale industries and cottage industries, Training for making domestic items at small scale. Training for growing spices, vegetables, bee keeping, dairy farming, call centre jobs etc. To achieve this purpose the government has started special institutes, skill development centres like Industrial training Institutes, Community Colleges Kaushal vikas Kendras. In addition to these many industrial authorities and private bodies, banks etc. have also started training of youth to eradicate unemployment and to meet the demands of the industries. Some of these bodies are ICICI, Kirloskar, Raymonds, NIIT, and Indo Danish Tool Room etc. All these initiatives are in co-ordination of each other and sometimes overlap also.