By Ashwani MishraJayant Krishna, CEO, National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) is responsible for providing a strategic vision in ensuring that his team moves in one direction toward achieving the Skill India mission. In this interview he shares his views on how the public and private sectors need to collaborate to create aspiration and respect for skills within the youth, and why more specialized skill sets will be sought after.Q. How is the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) playing its part to achieve the government’s target of training more than 400 million people across the country in different skills by 2022? Is it achievable? What are the key concerns?
It’s a target that India must achieve in order to reap its demographic dividend. We are a young nation and we have the potential to supply human resource of industry standards to the global market. The challenges can be divided into long term and immediate ones at this point in time. One is on the policy
front and the other is with regard to the delivery on ground as per identified standards; and its database management.
The National Skill Mission and the Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Policy has already received cabinet approval and is being implemented. On the delivery front, we at NSDC, are actively pushing for standardization in syllabi, teaching methodology, state of workshops/labs/classes/courses and interface with industry.
Another long term challenge is vocationalization of education and implementation of national skill qualification framework in collaboration with schools education and higher education. NSDC is actively ensuring delivery of standards across all initiatives and bridging the gap between the industry, the academia and the corporates to build and sustain a cohesive skill ecosystem for the youth of our country, make them employable and ensure jobs to them.
Adjacently, the public and the private sector will have to collaborate and work on creating aspiration and respect for skills, within the youth. Enough awareness needs to be imparted on the courses available under vocational education and how they can help transform an individual’s life.Q. There are several government bodies in India running skill development programmes but with little symbiosis. How do we ensure quality outcomes and skill development with speed?
Agree that there are several bodies and skill development programs which were running in isolation till now; but the new Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship currently has focused heavily on assistance, coordination and convergence across ministries, states and departments. This will certainly ensure quality outcomes and skill development with speed. There is a lot of restructuring and realignment which is taking place in the skill ecosystem.
Over 70-odd Skill Development Programmes (SDPs), were being run, each with its own norms for eligibility criteria, duration of training, cost of training, outcomes, monitoring and tracking mechanism etc. The recent skill development policy has been a great move by MSDE, which has helped rationalize the whole spectrum of skill development processes and systems including inputs, outputs, funding/cost norms, third party certification and assessment, monitoring/tracking mechanisms, and empanelment of training providers.
Another big change that has been seen is that the Skills Ministry now has 11,000 industrial training institutes (ITIs) and scores of other institutions, and the apprenticeship and training divisions, under its purview.
So everyone is getting aligned to one common goal and this was imperative; as it was about time that the country realized the need and importance of skills; and all industries, ministries, states, corporates and individuals join hands and work towards a common objective of making India the ‘Skills Capital of the World’.Q. How have you been using IT to meet some of these goals?
With the advent of technology in India and new modes and modules of delivery in education and training, IT has a crucial role to play in the success of skill development in the nation, especially when the rural parts of India are concerned where delivery has been a challenge for us.
There are multi-media enabled technology solutions now for skilling and they are now being integrated in online/in-class education through digital/video using blended learning, in industry driven curricula and pedagogy and in direct industry partnerships. These job oriented e-learning courses can reach thousands of students simultaneously through integrated platforms.
IT also helps in managing the huge database of the skilled workforce we have in the country and helps align the demand and supply in the market across sectors.Q. Are you adopting some best practices from other nations or partnered with them?
Yes certainly. There are best practices that are readily available and which can be and have been adopted by us in our ecosystem. NSDC has entered into several agreements with countries like USA, UK, Australia, France, Germany and Canada with a purpose of technology transfer of international standards in vocational training, training of trainers, setting up of centers of excellence, international mobility through mapping of job roles and development of transnational standards.
We have partnered with these countries to ensure best practices which will benefit the youth not only in the domestic market but in the global market as well.Q. Will India see new professions and new job roles emerge with the advent of emerging technologies?
Last year the government launched three major campaigns for the country which will eventually give India its direction for growth – “Make in India
”, “Digital India
” and “Start-Up India”. These will require special focus on skill sets in the manufacturing sector, construction, IT/ITeS, e-commerce, hospitality and healthcare.
Job positions that will have high demand in the years include data scientists, retail planners, product managers, digital marketers, and senior IT professionals. Engineers will continue to have a high demand. It is also a must that these skilled workers have good behavioral skills, interpersonal and communication skills.
India will also see new professions and job roles, coming up, with the advent of new technology. For e.g. a BPO unit of 500 professionals can easily be managed through an IVR now but we still need technology professionals who can ensure correct delivery of information through the IVR. Hence more specialized skill sets will be sought after.
Basic skills sets for being an entrepreneur will also be in huge demand keeping in mind the boost and support that young professionals will get from the “Start-up India” campaign.(This interview was originally published as part of the maketechhuman campaign enabled by Nokia in association with ET Telecom)