Other speakers on the panel included Swati Mujumdar, Chancellor, Symbiosis Skills and Professional University (SSPU); Ved Mani Tiwari, CEO, National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC); Pankaj Bansal, Founder and Group CEO, PeopleStrong; and Jayant Rastogi, Global CEO, Magic Bus India Foundation.
According to Tiwari, since the formation of MSDE in 2014, multiple initiatives have been taken, including an interdisciplinary surge, creating a foundation for India to become the global skill capital.
He said, however, that the skills-based migration framework needed to be further fine-tuned. “International migration of staff “This is also assessed in terms of the different xenophobic forces and migration patterns. But there is a very important case for this to happen as well,” he added.
SSPU’s Mujumdar stressed the need to change perceptions about skills to achieve scalability of initiatives.
“If scalability is to be achieved, institutionalized mechanisms and processes will need to be created where skilled workforce also gets acceptance and recognition. The pertinent issue of social acceptability of coming from a specialized university background still exists. In India, most students pursue graduate or postgraduate degrees without thinking whether it will lead to employability or not,” he said. Mujumdar proposed a hub-and-spoke model, where academia in conjunction with industry “Training is very local and contextualised. Pune is a big automotive hub and Indore is known for its textiles. What works in Pune may not work in Indore and vice versa. So contextualisation and localisation are very important,” he added.
Taking note of the role of the private sector On skills, NSDC’s Tiwari said markets are the best determinant of resource allocation and somehow “we have failed to send this signal that skills leads to productivity gains.”
“We need a huge amount of funding, so we are working on a lot of financial innovations, including the recently launched Skill Impact Bonds, Vouchers and Skill Loans, where the government provides guarantees for someone to get a skill loan of up to Rs 750,000,” Tiwari said.
PeopleStrong’s Bansal pointed out the long and winding road to earning a degree, acquiring skills and landing a job. He said, “HR professionals are no longer just talking about degrees. Every job is about skills. There is something called skill cloud, not job cloud, not competencies. I don’t see funds investing in jobs.”
Bansal said 52% of Indians are employable according to Wheebox’s India Skills Report, and the figure has risen from 34% a decade ago. However, three out of four companies say they do not have employable talent. To close this gap, Bansal proposed that funds should be invested in job creation.
According to NSDC’s Tiwari, India has multiple opportunities, including exporting services through global capability hubs, creating a workforce pool to serve the care economy, and upskilling India’s workforce to enable it to play a greater role in areas of energy transition.
However, technology can also act as an impediment to harnessing India’s demographic dividend.
Rastogi of Magic Bus India Foundation said, “For this demographic dividend to pay off, we need to look at the employment equation. We need to create 7.65-8 million jobs. AI is disruptive, it changes the way we work. What is going to happen is that the number of jobs that will be created will be much less than before. We need to be aware of that.”
According to Rastogi, two factors, namely a young workforce and cost arbitrage, act as a silver lining amidst a looming dark cloud.
She stressed the need for vocational training to be more inclusive in India. “If we want to be a global hub for vocational training, we need to increase female participation in the workforce. Currently, it is 30-35%, the international average is 47% and we need to increase it to 60% to be inclusive,” Rastogi said.
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