Online published on 28 February, 2020.
Skill development and skill enhancement is an essential part for any business organization. Every organization is looking for skilled manpower to enhance the productivity. In India, supply of manpower is adequate but most of them do not possess adequate skills to remain competitive in the market. Therefore, the gap remains in the labour market. Most of the workforces are stuck in the unorganized sector, where they do not have adequate wage and working environment. Because of which, it is directly affecting the socio economic well-being of the individuals. There is a need to change this system. Skill enhancement is a massive task and it may not be possible without the help of government as well as other stakeholders. Specific industry should come forward to resolve the issue. The primary job is to identify the sectors where skill shortages are massive. Government already identified various sector skill councils and established National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). The objective is to impart training and skill enhancement policies decided by the government. Almost all the sectors are coming under purview of sector skill council. Not only the existing job market, should the effort be made to enhance the employability for the future job market as well.
The study observed certain areas where the scope of growth lies beyond the skill enhancement skills. The major area is existing education system. Drop out from elementary school level is the major area of concern. Even the basic education is not there then it will not help the individuals to adopt training at a later stage. Education system should incorporate practical orientation. So, those students who are dropping out may understand the importance of education to remain strong in the job market. This has not been done till date. Discussions are going on to impart vocational education at the school level, but the same is not implemented in a massive scale. Problem is not lying with the people who are dropping out only. Those who are working they are also having similar problems. Most of them are working based on their own learning experience. The job that they learned from family tradition. Present day, this learning is not sufficient. The need for standardization of learning is important and that is what the sector skill council is doing. But, this certification process is not widely acknowledged by the industry as a whole. The problem is more relevant for workers engage in unorganized sector. Wide publicity is required to strengthen the process of certification. Gender specific training is also required so that women participation is more. There is a genuine problem where it is observed that women are participating less in various skill enhancement courses. This should be sorted out at the earliest. Since, the skill gap is region specific, itis alsoinfluencing themigrationof workforce from one regiontoanother region. Because of which manpower shortages becomes more rampant in present day. If people are moving from one region to another it will bound to create a dual negative impact in both place of origin as well as place of destination. Place of origin will suffer manpower shortages so adequate developmental work may not possible to carry out due to lack of manpower. Place of destination will receive more manpower and by the rule of market, it will reduce the competitive wage of the industry at place of destination. A natural phenomenon is that if labour supply increases it will reduce the wage. This can be prevented if rate of migration can be reduced by creating enough job opportunities at the place of origin.
PMKVY introduced in the year 2015 is aimed to address the issues face by the Indian labour force. The massive programmes in collaboration with private players are aimed to provide adequate skills free of cost so that workforce becomes more competitive. There is no wrong in the policy. Strategically it is going to add significant value for theworking aswell as prospectiveworkforce. Buttheconcern is still there at the ground level. The programme is required to complete the training within a stipulated time and subsequently provide placement assistance to all the trainees. The study observed that most of the time it remains a compliance and actual placement record is never achieved at the endof thecourse. If this continuesthen it will becomea money making process forthe implementing agency and vote bank politics for government. As mentioned the true objective is good enough to reduce the skill gap but doubt remains about its actual implementation. The intension is good but outcome is not beyond doubt. The need of the hour is to implement adequate and massive monitoring over and above the existing one. The online technology enabled system is good to track any kind of frauds or misutilization of funds and resources. However, these systems beyond the controllable limits of the government. A ground level data validation is necessary to judge the real benefits of the programme. Else, it will fail to bring the much needed skilled workforce that the industry is looking for.
