Prof. (Dr.) Sanjiv Marwah, director of JK Business School (JKBS), Delhi
The world is moving at a new pace. India’s need for highly skilled graduates will rise in the coming years. In order to create a more competitive and sustainable atmosphere, India needs to enhance its investment in knowledge and people as well as provide them with the relevant skills, especially entrepreneurial, creative and leadership qualities to foster the creation of new ideas and transform them into innovative products, services and jobs. Skill Development & Entrepreneurship is all about upgrading the skills of prospective entrepreneurs to improve the decision making capabilities resulting in higher productivity and efficiency. It is about honing students capability to anticipate and respond to societal changes.
Role of the government
The government is also in an advanced stage of formulating a policy on the subject. A new ministry ‘Ministry of Skills Development and Entrepreneurship had been formed previous year. This is the foremost instance where a separate ministry for skill development has been formed. Formerly, a variety of departments and agencies were tasked with development of skill and entrepreneurship in the nation. Under the previous government, the Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) worked around entrepreneurship, while the National Skill Development Agency (NSDA) was involved in skill development. The new ministry is tasked ensure that India meet its target of skilling and up skilling 500 million Indians by 2022. At the same time, it aims to create an ecosystem that eliminates bottlenecks which makes investment and business easier and encourages entrepreneurship. Also, baby steps taken by the previous government are now being given the requisite momentum. The new government aims to bring on various norms that will provide support for strengthening the institutional structures for effective coordination of skill training and development of a common database of trainees allowing flexibility to meet the requirements of different parts of the country or different socio economic groups. Recognition of Indian education in global arena and ability of Indian players to compete globally will be enhanced immensely. Foreign governments will also be optimistic to set up skill centres and universities to participate in the content creation, design of curricula and delivery of training.
Scope
Vocational training can be used as a strategic approach for achieving youth empowerment. The required competencies in people can easily be addressed through vocational options leading to the beneficiaries of self-employment and economic self-sufficiency. Raising the level of awareness among key stakeholders for entrepreneurship and enterprise creation as a viable and realistic option for career development and developing strategic plans at different plans targeting different players is obligatory. The capacity and quality of training infrastructure and trainers will be improved to ensure reasonable and easy access for every civilian. Special exercise programmes would be urbanised for trainers delivering courses meant for overseas employment including language training in collaboration with the apprehensive state. The curriculum will be developed in discussion with industry representatives, experts and academic circles by the proficient bodies to meet the objectives of providing quality training and gainful employment with the latest market trends. Practitioners and students will be in complete sync and focus on clear career pathways which can provide access to lifelong learning and sustainable employment. The education programme will focus mainly on the soft skills and IT skills, curriculum alignment, rapid training programs and fostering manpower for the skilled manpower both laterally and perpendicularly. Increasing adaptation of technology, where technology solutions are gaining grounds in form of campus management software correspondence. This enhances quality, convenience and increasing contraption.
Growth
Experts believe that the contribution of India to the world GDP is estimated to increase from 6 percent to 11 percent by the year 2025, while on the flip side the contribution of USA to world GDP is presumed to decline from 21 percent to 18 percent. This indicates towards the emergence of India as the third biggest global economy after US and China. The appraisal is supported by the large development in all the sectors in India. Every nation aims to accomplish maximum economic development which depends mainly on human resources. But human resource alone cannot fabricate economic development, there must be dynamic entrepreneurs. So the need for leaders, managers and entrepreneurs has increased significantly. Entrepreneurship based on originality has immense growth potential in the coming years which can also create jobs for the youth. A successful entrepreneur must possess the mental ability, clear objectives, human relations ability, effective communication, technical knowledge, decision making and last but not the least the self confidence to pull off his/her goals. Challenges will be to widen learning organisations, how to promote knowledge cultures, enhance learning processes and how to develop learning communities. For every obstacle, addresses a variety of theory, research and practice. Organisational and individual learning are at the heart of the competitive strategy and provide the only sustainable source of spirited benefit, principally at a time of hasty environmental transformation.
Importance of entrepreneurship skills training
The need for such training cannot be undermined. We have several polytechnics and it is which have been churning out trained manpower for a long time now. Companies also have their own internal training facilities. Yet, the demand for such skilled manpower is very high. As of now, this demand is met mostly by workers who have had no formal training in the trades but obtained some working knowledge by working with those in the trade. No law exists which bars a person to pursue any trade even if she/he has not certification to do so. This results in low quality and not always consistent service. Further, with the rapid pace of technical developments, most Indian employees find it very exigent to keep up with these developments. As such, skills development is extremely important – the list of skills is large for a big nation such as ours. The challenge lies in casing the huge population which needs to be trained. We also need to have adequate and well competent trainers, infrastructure to train and resources to support. It is also important to educate and motivate the beneficiaries of this programme. Given the large scope, the programme will take at least a decade to cover the back-log of people to be trained. The need of the hour is a legislation which makes it mandatory for workers to be certified in the trade which they intend to practice.
Also read: Significance of Teaching 21st-Century Skills to Students
