KOHIMA, JULY 21 (DIPR): The Directorate of Employment Skill Development and Entrepreneurship conducted a one day Orientation programme for aspiration and opportunity mapping study at its conference hall, Kohima on July 21.
The programme began with opening remarks and felicitation by the Deputy Director of Employment Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Chiden Yaden. He said that this mapping opportunity has not been conducted by any other state. This study is a big challenge but at the same time it is a learning experience for all stating that this will shape the future of the state, he added.
The Joint Director Y. Vandanshan Lotha gave a short speech on the background on aspiration and opportunity mapping programme, which was followed by another speech by Deputy Director C. Lotam Chang on Roles and Responsibilities of District incharge and AMOs.
Aditya Bran Mallik, Principal Consultant, stated that Nagaland has remained by and large disconnected and secluded and as such, the people’s understanding of opportunities that are available in various skill development programme and the kind of job opportunities they can avail is very low. He said that the factors that have prevented the youth from acquiring sustainable livelihoods in both job employment and self employment are lack of access to market, lack of capital for funding entrepreneurship ventures and lack of domain and entrepreneurship expertise to sustain ventures.
He also mentioned that unless action is taken, the situation of the youth will become unsustainable, representing a threat to social cohesion. Since young people represent as valuable resource to the economy, business and society, promoting more and more better opportunities through skill development will be one of the key dimensions for a stable society.
The main implementation of this orientation programme is to bring out an informed study about the aspiration of the local population and the opportunities available initiated by the department which will cover all the 11 (eleven) districts of the state. The study will be administered at the grass root level through a questionnaire designed to capture the needs and aspiration of the local population. To have a comprehensive data a sample size of minimum 50 households from each block in the state will be surveyed and the macro economic data of each village will also be captured.
The outcome of the orientation programme is to give an insight to the actual reality prevailing at the grass root level and bring out the livelihood aspirations of the people. Further, help in designing the skills programmes that will be disseminated to the people making sure the programmes are specific to every district and the need of every tribe in the state. In addition, it will give an opportunity to develop entrepreneurs at the village level as well as up the value chain young entrepreneurs.
He concluded by further saying that government policies cannot be targeted properly because the right information is not available and today in Nagaland and the rest of India creating employment opportunities, livelihood opportunities for the youth is most important. Unless there are datas available about the youth of who they are, where they are, what do they want, what their capabilities and challenges are, and also the places they stay- whether it has the right infrastructure, whether right funding is available etc, unless all these information is there, then proper mechanism policy cannot be done.
The funding of the aspiration mapping study is historic because Nagaland is the first and only state in the whole nation which is doing this study and it is being done in all the districts. The information that is going to be collected is about the target audience which is from 18 years of age to 30 years of age who are basically the main job seekers. This study will help in finding what the target audience wants- what kind of jobs they want, what basic infrastructure is required etc. This information is going to form the basis for the states skill policy.
The Nagaland state skill mission is in the process of being formed. This data is going to form the basis for that policy. The programme was followed by an afternoon session on the orientation. The department also requested all the youths, the churches, village councils, women organisations etc to respond positively and help in making this study a success to benefit the future youths of Nagaland.
