Skill development has been the buzzword of both the central and state governments in the recent past. To this end, many schemes, notably under the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) – “a one of its kind, Public Private Partnership Company with the primary mandate of catalysing the skills landscape in India” – has been undertaken in the past two-three years. With the objective to “Create, Fund & Enable,” it is envisaged as a platform for providing avenues from incubation to gestation of the project.
Concurrently, the virtue of skills, or the lack of it is constantly emphasized by those at the helms of affairs. On ‘World Youth Skills Day’ (July 15), Nagaland Governor, PB Acharya stressed on the need for skill development to “help address the many challenges faced by the society, including unemployment, poverty, and development.”
Thereafter, at a collegium of principals, he batted on inclusion of skill development courses in university curriculum, while categorically noting that jobs in government sector have reached a saturation point.
On the sidelines, the State’s Higher & Technical Education Minister recently sought some relaxation in the guidelines and improvised approach from the centre for skill development programme in Nagaland.
There appears, on the other hand, to be a combined attack on the pursuit of “fancy degrees” and students are encouraged to develop both hard and soft power skills to thrive in the rapidly shifting economic paradigm. There is a bitter home truth that not all the populace can be covered under government jobs and other “secure” jobs as assumed by all.
The growing threat in the functionality of the state governments is undoubtedly unemployment with social, economic and most importantly political ramifications. While skills power is sin qua non for job seekers in modern economic structure, the current craze towards such approach, both at the centre and state, could be attributed to such factors. In doing so, however, the government as well as the society should also be wary about the types and nature of skill development training being imparted.
If such skills development are restricted to retail service, wellness sector, hospitality, beauty care to name a few, the scope itself is narrowed to preparing the cohorts for harsh metro life. As an extension, soft skill matters, sectors like banking, financial services and insurance, healthcare, media and entertainment, retail etc. cannot be left untouched.
Hard skills oriented professions – earthmoving and infrastructure building, security services, furniture and fitting, iron and steel, plumbing, ICT, food processing, handicrafts, textiles and handloom, electrician, driver-cum-mechanic, logistics, domestic workers, paints and coatings etc – need to be taken up as priority areas.
At the same time, the government also needs to answer whether its primary goal is to train professionals to meet domestic needs or ‘export’ outside.
For a perennial solution, the former approach has better prospects.
As such, to augment the developmental policies, the skill development drive should be supplemented equally by a thrust towards entrepreneurship including rural entrepreneurship. For instance, one can say that many rural populace possess either one set of skills or other, though may not be formally recognized.
The ‘top-down’ and ‘cut & paste’ approaches are at fault. The state could evolve a way to recognize unique skills possessed by the masses and must engender a ‘bottom-up’ approach in order to have wider impact at the grassroots.
This is crucial as one has to understand that nearly a two-third of the population in Nagaland are still bracketed as rural inhabitants and there is a need to mitigate the gaps between urban and rural poor. Original ideas and a strong political will is the way forward for ‘inclusive skill development’ in Nagaland.
