Bridging Skill Gap In India

Indian corporate and educational space is witnessing huge investment of time and money in skill training, talent acquisition and retention to address the dearth of skilled workforce. There is a great void in the market because we gain knowledge in academic institutions and not the skills required for jobs. Indian traditional education structure needs improvisation to create enough employment opportunities for the equivalently skilled workforce. Post Right to Education Act, it has encouraged maximum students to complete their schooling, however, learning without hands-on practice is incomplete. To fill this void, the Indian industry is now implementing up-skilling and re-skilling training along with academic learnings through advanced technology interventions.

Key elements in bridging this gap:

• Adding ‘Context’ in education 

Content & context are equally required to skill people. In this information-driven age content combined with a strong contextual understanding seems more interesting and easier to retain and also provides the real-time perspective moreover, it also improves the scope of employment as well.

• Technology empowered learning

The advent of technology is playing a significant role in reshaping the course of learning, hence, our education system is likely to be evolved and technology-focused to keep up with the pace of advancements. New technology-empowered learning modules including smart classes live online/virtual lectures, recorded videos, podcasts, Artificial and virtual intelligence, audio-video, etc. are reaping extra-ordinary outcomes in disseminating quality education amongst the learners.They are not only providing unlimited & uninterrupted access to knowledge through no. of resources but also are diminishing the distance & time factors which somehow work as a block in the way of quality education. Technology has empowered the learners from rural areas too to access & imply advance knowledge to hone their skills. 

• Integrated learning programs

Skilling & training has proved to be the most important investments in terms of quality output. Classroom training usually faces geographical restrictions related to equal distribution of quality education to all. Limited sources of teaching such as expert faculty, quality talent, applied learning modules also contribute to accelerate the disparity of demand and supply of talent. The integrated educational programs deliver learning through four forms of classrooms – Digital, On-Campus, On-sire, and On-the-Job offering a more holistic apprenticeship experience.  It prepares the talent pool with add on practical skills and makes them ready for future employment.

• Skill and professional education

Specialising in at least one professional skill is imperative while students are at schools or colleges. Embedding professional skilling programmes and vocational courses across all education levels brace-up learners’ skills and make them eligible for better job opportunities with good remunerations.

The Central and State Government both are proactively introducing various skill training programs to skill existing and prospective workforces to meet the demand of skilled employees in the job market. The Ministry of Skills Development and Entrepreneurship launched its Skill India program to align three major aspects – Academics, industry and job aspirants. However, many players in the market are developing and offering advanced & customized solutions to re-skill and up-skill people. The system is looking forward to evolving a sustainable and long-term skill learning plans for all to achieve the desired output. 

Corporates are also inclining their focus towards the importance of training. Need to stay updated with the ongoing trends & technologies has become imperative for the growth in the industry. Thus corporate keep on imbibing customized training programmes as per the specific teams or the entire workforce. These training modules incorporate advance methodologies of gamifications, story-telling, hybrid learning and customized focussed training programmes to make training lighter yet highly effective. 

It is clearly visible that education combined with professional skill is the need of the hour to fit into the current employment scenario bridging the actual shortage of skilled workforce.

Kiran Dham

Guest Author The author is CEO of Globus Infocom