Budget 2019: Preparing Youth For New-Age Skills

The Narendra Modi 2.0 government plans to focus on imparting new-age skills and training the youth to grab high-paying jobs within and outside the country.

The new-age skills like artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, big data, 3-D printing, virtual reality, and robotics are disrupting every sector today.

“To prepare our youth to also take up jobs overseas, we will increase focus on skill-sets needed abroad including language training. We will also lay focus on new-age skills like artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, big data, 3-D printing, virtual reality and robotics”, said Nirmala Sitharaman, Finance Minister, Government of India.

Presenting the Budget, India's first full-time woman finance minister also mentioned about 'Kayakave Kailasa' (work is worship). She highlighted that the government enables around 10 million youths for industry relevant skill training through the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana that is helping create a large pool of skilled manpower in the country.

Commenting on the importance of new-age skills, Nilesh Gaikwad, Country Manager, EDHEC Business School said, “It is heartening to see the Government of India emphasize on skill-training through Skill Certification Schemes. The Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna (PMKVY) will ensure our graduates are Industry-ready”.

The minister further informs that no Indian institute ranked in top 200 universities until 5 years ago, and this year three institutions made it in the top 200 global institutions bracket.

Expressing views about the presented budget, Rekha M. Menon, Chairman and Senior Managing Director, Accenture in India said, “The emphasis on skilling is a welcome inclusion in the Union Budget. The post digital era presents a complex skilling challenge with a clear need to develop two kinds of skill sets on a broad scale – technology skills and human+ skills or skills such as complex reasoning that equip humans to work in collaboration with machines. Building these capabilities and addressing the skills deficit at a national scale, requires a robust skilling framework with digital technologies at its core”.