Skills are indeed the most essential drivers for transforming lives everywhere. Once individuals are skilled, it opens up numerous opportunities, not only for their social and economic growth, but for their communities too.

India is at a strategic advantage today as it is home to the youngest population globally. With the Sustainable Development Goals and their focus on livelihoods and economic growth, there is a big opportunity for skill development to fuel economic growth. Moving forward post 2016, India’s future will be defined by how well it is able to skill its young population and enable their absorption into productive and gainful employment on a large scale. The government has acknowledged these needs and has embarked to skill and train 500 million people by 2022 through the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC).

The need for skill development in India is an immediate need and a huge market opportunity. By combining the 500 million skilling goal at a very conservative cost of INR 5,000 per trainee, the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) estimates that there is a market opportunity of over $20 billion during the next ten years itself. For this mammoth task of skill development to happen at scale, numerous innovative and scalable solutions must be implemented by businesses in the coming decade. While the government and big businesses have a role to play, it is actually the small businesses and entrepreneurs who make up the majority of India’s 93% unorganised economy that must ultimately become the heroes for India to successfully achieve its skilling goals.

However, for skill development efforts to be successful, markets (employers and industries) need to play a very large role in determining skill development content, curriculum and absorption volumes.

In order to bridge the gap between skill development and markets, supply and demand sides - NSDC has been setting up various Sector Skill Councils (SSCs) since 2011. As of now, there are over 30 such SSCs, which are providing direction to the skill development space in India by empanelling various skilling providers and by linking them with the industry and its various job roles. This has multiple benefits for both the supply and the demand sides. For India’s unemployed youth, it translates into an opportunity to be skilled on a relevant course (a job role) by a NSDC certified provider. At the same time, for the industry, it leads to skilled workforce being created everywhere through a standardised course, thus creating work-ready pools of human resources at scale for all their job roles. This is a win-win situation.

The Development Alternatives Group has always been a strong believer in the importance of skill development and carries out many such activities to contribute towards the Skill India Mission. Its special purpose vehicle – TARA Livelihood Academy has till date provided skills to over 33,000 individuals and is empaneled with NSDC.

In the words of our Chairman, Dr. Ashok Khosla:

"Skills are the central drivers for transforming lives...

... a skilled workforce is a fundamental asset for an economy and global market growth".   q