Capacity Building And Skilling For High Order Industrial Revolution After COVID

Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma May 07, 2020

The pandemic situation created by COVID-19 has put us in trouble but on the other side, it has given us an opportunity to lead the world.

Everyone is aware of how developed countries are finding it difficult to face this pandemic situation, whereas India has done wonders in controlling and managing the situation.

China is losing the confidence of the world trade and thus this is the right time for us to take advantage of the situation and lead the World. This is the time when we can make India as a Global Human Resource Capital of the world by proper planning and strategy.

The Government of India is emphasizing very much on skilling and capacity building so as to make the youth acceptable to the industry for employment. The World Economic Forum has identified 10 top skills that are required in the age of automation at the workplace. These include complex problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, people management, coordinating with others, emotional intelligence, judgement and decision making, service orientation, negotiation and cognitive flexibility. It has also become very important in a country like India that youth coming out from school or colleges are ready to handle/take such courses so that they can have hands-on experience to jump on to the job/assignments available in the market.

Similarly, it is also very essential for those who are already in service/employment to be mentally prepared for re-skilling for giving better productivity and return to the employer. Government has made many changes in the system for the last 10 -12 years but more changes are required for better employability of the youth and one of the major change expected is that instead of new academic qualifications, hands-on and practical experience in the industry or in the field of work shall have to be given weightage. The idea is that it is very simple to teach on a blackboard how to drive a motorcycle, it may be an hour's lecture, sufficient to teach it theoretically but the fact is that when one to drive the motorcycle on-road and it may take a day or two or perhaps more than that. If theoretical education would have given sufficient knowledge then all those faculty members who are in IITs, IIMs would have run their own industry better than what other industrialists are doing who have never gone for any management/engineering courses. This implies that the field experience counts more than the classroom education for better productivity which is more visible from the fact that the bureaucrats get chances to work in 15-20 departments during their carrier and this enriches their knowledge in terms of various management and administrative skills.

This is the opportune time Government of India as well as State Governments should work in unison to create entrepreneurship, skilling, re-skilling and capacity building so as to make the youth more conducive to employability and productivity. Educational Institutions in the country are also keen to speed up the process of adaptation of new and innovative courses to meet the challenges that the world offers. The Government of India has also come out with Education Policy 2019 where even Humanities and Arts are to be integrated with Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Emphasis is on Learning to Know, Learning to Do, Learning to Live Together and Learning to Be.

It is now a truth acknowledged in many quarters that our young graduates will have to live and work in a steadily more automated and disruptive world. The ability to think well, and think fast, will assume greater significance than it has thus far. With the Digital India vision of Government of India and also rapid change in technology aspects like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Language (ML), Internet of Things (IoT), Data Analytics (DA), Big Data (BD) etc will play a major role in every aspect of life.