By Ibu Sanjeeb Garg
Beating the Rhetoric
The contest of economic ideologies over growth versus human development has made its appearance again in the government’s plight towards Skill India. According to the National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, 2015, India is one of the youngest nations in the world with more than 62% of its population in the working age group (15-59 years), and more than 54% of its total population below 25 years of age. This has opened the ‘window of opportunity’ in the form of a demographic dividend, which we shall reap by skill development. The Government of India defines Skill Development as “any domain specific demand led skill training activity leading to employment or any outcome oriented activity that enables a participant to acquire a Skill, duly assessed and certified by an independent third party agency, and which enables him/her to get wage/self employment leading to increased earnings, and/or improved working conditions, such as getting formal certification for hitherto informal skills, and/or moving from informal to formal sector jobs or pursue higher education/training”. The ambit and focus is multifold with the ultimate objective being laid on employment.
There have been arguments in support of job creation as the tool to resolve the debate on growth versus development. But the story of a “jobless growth” as revealed by various NSSO rounds is another story altogether. The fate of those who have been trained underthe existing skill development schemes also remains grim. To give some examples, around 6 million students have been trained under five government schemes alone (lasting from 6 days up to 6 months), and more than US$500 million have been spent on those schemes since 2011. Yet, the placement rate of trainees under these schemes is only 27%. The NSDC, the nodal agency for promoting and funding skilling programmes, has been able to place only about 5 per cent of the students trained under the PMKVY scheme, the government’s flagship programme on skill development (source: NSDC). The number of apprentices in India is dismally low with around 212,000 trainees who are annually enrolled through the government sponsored Apprenticeship Training Scheme (ATS) in 28,500 establishments, representing only about 0.05% of India’s workforce (source: DGT, 2015).
While industry is creating jobs, many are low productivity non-contractual jobs in the unorganized sector, offering low incomes, little protection, and no benefits (from the Union Budget 2012-13). Thomas (2012) adds that the sharp variations in manufacturing employment during the 2000s are also a consequence of the growing share of temporary and contract workers – who could be hired and fired easily. Jha (2009) opines that the emergence of neo-liberal ethos has “severely dented the prospects of provisioning for basic services, which has, in turn, made many of our well-meaning policies relatively ineffective”.
The demographic dividend in itself is not a guarantor of growth. To quote Bloom and Canning (2004), “both empirically and theoretically there is nothing automatic about the link from demographic change to economic growth. Age distribution changes merely create the potential for economic growth. Whether or not this potential is captured depends on the policy environment.” If a population bulge in the working age group is to accelerate growth, Chandrasekhar et al (2006) note that the processes of development which in part created this bulge must ensure that the quality of those entering the workforce is of the desired level and that these workers find employment as and when they enter the labour force.
It is perhaps the best time to revisit skill development from Sen’s capabilities approach as an investment on people’s capabilities as “real opportunities to do and be what they have reason to value”. Skill development is an enabler to better livelihood opportunities that can bridge the social, regional, economic and gender divide. A negative social perception, an unsure progression path, lack of job security, and the trials of a dynamic labour market make skilling a challenge and a responsibility. Skill development should therefore be a continuing process of developing human capabilities that builds within the early age of an individual and leads to pathways to better jobs and lifelong learning which the industry and society at large ‘have reasons to value’.
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(Views expressed by the author are personal)