World Youth Skills Day is celebrated each year on the 15th of July. The United Nations General Assembly declared 15 July as World Youth Skills Day in 2014 to celebrate the importance of equipping young people with employment skills, decent jobs and entrepreneurship. This day aims to raise awareness of skills development, foster collaboration, and empower young people so that they can change their worlds through the power of skills.
The theme for World Youth Skills Day 2023 is Skilling Teachers, Trainers and Youth for a transformative future. It highlights the essential role of teachers, trainers and other educators in providing skills for youth to transition to the labour market and actively engage in their communities and societies.
The modern youth faces great challenges in entering the labour force owing to the advent of AI technology. Apart from that, advancements in the economy and society overall have brought significant transformations in the labour landscape. Young people thus need to obtain new, extended, and adaptable skills to thrive in the cutthroat competition.
India’s digital skill development programmes need to be highly responsive towards addressing emerging areas of priority in the technology sector. It is imperative to engage in regular consultations with the private sector and continually update course designs and content to align with industry trends. Cultivating core human-centric qualities are equally important. The primary barrier faced by the youth is a lack of awareness about available opportunities and a perception that existing programmes may not cater to their specific training requirements.
The Indian government has implemented a range of schemes and initiatives to motivate young individuals to acquire skills and qualify for future career prospects.
Some of them include:
Advanced Vocational Training Scheme (AVTS)
The training in some selected areas is given through short-term modular courses that have durations of one to six weeks under the AVTS scheme. These tailor-made courses are designed to meet the industrial needs of the country. The National Skill Training Institute (NSTI) is a group of facilities and institutions that provide workers with essential skills during the training process.
Craftsman Training Scheme (CTS)
This scheme provides training courses to the youth through a network of Industrial Training Institutes (ITI). It is aimed at the ensuring availability of skilled workers in different trades for the domestic industry and reducing employment among the younger generation.
Jan Shikshan Sansthan
The goal of Jan Shikshan Sansthan is to discover the skills in demand in rural regions and then offer vocational training to illiterates and school dropouts there. In India, rural residents make up around two-thirds of the total population. By delivering crucial skills that can lead to employment prospects, the goal is to economically empower these rural people.
Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras (PMKK)
This scheme was launched under the Indian government‘s Skill India Mission. It aims to establish state-of-the-art and aspirational model training centres in every Indian district. These centres offer industry-driven courses to people with a focus on employability.
Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY)
This scheme was launched in 2015 to promote skill development among the Indian youth. It offers short-duration skills training to the youth who are also given placement assistance at the end of their certification program. The main objectives of the scheme is to make the youth employable through skill training, increase the productivity of the existing workforce and align skill training with the needs of the country.
Skill Strength for Industrial Value Enhancement (STRIVE)
This scheme was launched with assistance from the World Bank and aims to bring reforms in institutions and improve the quality and market relevance of the skill development training programs in long-term vocational training. It was launched to assist institutions and make it possible for them to provide high-quality skill-development training.
Skills Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness For Livelihood Promotion (SANKALP)
The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) launched this program on 19 January 2018. It aims to transform the overall skilling ecosystem of India and improve short-term skill development planning by employing decentralisation methods to monitor skilling activities and promote convergence.
UDAAN
The program provides skill training and aims to enhance the employability of unemployed youth in Jammu and Kashmir encompassing graduates, post-graduates and three-year engineering diploma holders. The initiative exposes young people in the state to the business world while simultaneously giving businesses access to the vast talent pool of the state.
The demand for digitally skilled professionals in India is projected to surge ninefold, by 2025. This is an opportunity to seize to prioritize India’s youth and equip them for a promising future.
