Skill Development for Empowerment

There is a Chinese proverb that says “Give someone a fish; you have fed them for today. Teach someone to fish; and you have fed them for a lifetime”. This proverb illustrates the clear meaning and concept of empowerment through skill development.

In India, skill development is recognised as a major task and a priority with approximately 10-12 million labour force entrants every year. However, lack of skill development is regarded as a main impediment in sustaining the high growth of Indian industry.

Considering the lull in educational level and skill growth, there is a subsequent downfall in gainful employment and income generating activities. Although people are able to avail education and training opportunities, the quality and relevance of the skills obtained are often a challenge.

With a Gross Domestic Production (GDP) growth of around nine per cent, India will be bubbling with employment opportunities. It is noted that there will not be a constraint of capital and technology, but of skilled manpower.

Quality employment for the rising workforce will have to be provided outside agriculture. The numbers are quite staggering - the need is for around six to eight million relevantly new non-agricultural jobs every year for decades ahead. This can’t happen over night; rather it will require a strong growth impetus from the rising demand and an education and training system.

Another major concern is engaging, that is, utilising the leisure time of the youth for optimum use, and harnessing their exuberance and raw energy for creative activities. Simultaneously, but more substantially, there is a need to provide opportunities for vocational skill development of the youth and inculcate entrepreneurial qualities in them; so as to motivate them towards self-reliance. This initiative becomes all the more important, specifically in the context of shrinking job opportunities in the existing infrastructure.

The Government of India has launched the Skills Development Initiative (SDI) to train approximately one million people on demand-driven vocational skills over the next five years and about one million each year, so as to support skills training, certification and upgrading the unorganised sector. The approach being the implementation of Modular Employable Skills (MES) training implemented by Ministry of Labour and Employment/Directorate-General of Employment and Training, which offers flexibility to those who have limited access to education and employability.

The DA Group in order to address this issue, has created vehicles like TARA, TARAhaat, and the TARA Livelihood Academy (TLA) to promote entrepreneurship and to create green job opportunities in sectors that employ more than 80 per cent of India’s off-farm workforce. Today, these entities stand out as unparalleled investment opportunities for those who believe that ‘development is good business’.

The Development Alternatives Group is also implementing a project of Hewlett Packard (HP). The project is all about procuring training and capacity building services to the existing and budding entrepreneurs on very specialised curricula called HP LIFE (Learning Initiatives for Entrepreneurs). For the past three years, the Development Alternatives Group is delivering the curricula in Bundelkhand region and around 2500 existing and budding entrepreneurs have been benefited so far by this programme.

The TARA Livelihood Academy (TLA) is registered as a vocational training provider with the Ministry of Labour and Employment/Directorate-General of Employment and Training and imparts training on six trades (ICT, Garment Making, Retail Management, Construction etc) in Bundelkhand. Moreover, with the help of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), TARA Livelihood Academy has also established the TARA Community College (TCC) in the Jhansi district of Uttar Pradesh. The TCC provides certificate and diploma courses on various subjects related to community needs.

The TARA Livelihood Academy is also working with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) towards the promotion of Green Jobs in India, particularly in the cities of Firozabad, Muradabad, Ujjain and Jabalpur. The notion of Green Jobs encapsulates the transformation of enterprises, workplaces and labour markets into a sustainable low-carbon economy providing decent employment opportunities in the rural sector. q

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