Like in many countries, in India too skilling and vocational training is not aspirational and does not hold high reputation. It is not exciting of a young person to become a skilled worker by investing in training. Everybody likes to become an engineer or a management professional and would like to go abroad for higher studies. Dealing with this situation is quite a challenge.
Another challenge is that the reputation of a skilled worker in India is much lower when compared to the countries I worked in before. I’m a German, and I was educated in Germany. I lived for 10 years in Taiwan, 5 years in China, where I saw outstanding development in those countries supported by strong skilled workers. While there is a demand for qualified skilled workforce in India, and there is a lot of talk around it, we need to make it work. Especially, if projects like “Make in India” have to be implemented successfully, it needs to be connected well with “Skill India”. We have to work much harder on promoting the value of our services.
Attracting and retaining youth
Young people in India are mostly looking for short-term success that comes with easy and high paid jobs. The crux of the matter is that the industry needs to pay attractive compensation for the skilled workers. And there should be more awareness at the social level with due recognition to skilled jobs, like how it is in China and Taiwan. We have to work more in this direction and ensure better payment and better recognition in society. We also need to adopt technology for better reach and consistent learning outcomes.
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