SOIL Report 2011 - ACCESS Development Services

State as the Largest Livelihoods Promoter 103will be added to the workforce. India mustensure that at least this number gets hiredfruitfully.What is the skills base of the young employablepopulation? The 2009–10 surveyof the Ministry of Labour and Employmentshowed that 41 per cent of workers are illiterate(a figure which competes closelywith the general population) and a further14 per cent have only completed primaryeducation (Business India 2011). NSSO2008–09 data showed that only 1.5 per centof urban literates and 0.2 per cent of ruralliterates have higher or technical education,and the figures are no different if we lookat just the youth (15 to 29 years) or the fulladult population. Currently, India has only2.5 million vocational training seats (around7,500 technical institutes for higher educationand only 2,500 polytechnic institutes). 9The current capacity of all India’s skilldevelopment programmes stands at only 3million (11th Five Year Plan).Following the World Bank’s 2006 reportdelineating critical gaps in India’s skillingmachinery, the Government of India(World Bank 2006) formulated the nationalskill development Policy that set out an ambitioustarget of skilling a workforce of 500million by 2022. The task is clearly stated inthe Policy as follows (NPSD 2009):1. Increasing capacity and capability ofthe existing system to ensure equitableaccess to all.2. Promoting lifelong learning, and maintainingquality and relevance, accordingto changing requirements, particularlyof the emerging knowledge economy.3. Creating effective convergence betweenschool education, various skill developmentefforts of the government and governmentand private sector initiatives.4. Capacity building of institutions forplanning, quality assurance and involvementof stakeholders.9All India Council for Technical Education(AICTE).5. Creating institutional mechanisms forresearch development, quality assurance,examinations and certification andaffiliations and accreditation.6. Increasing participation of stakeholders,mobilizing adequate investment for financingskill development, and attainingsustainability by strengthening physicaland intellectual resources.In 2008–09, the government providedthe first tranche of `1,000 crore towardsNational Skill Development Fund (NSDF)and established the NSDC. The Corporationhas a mandate to train 150 million people,while the labour ministry is expected totrain another 100 million by revamping andcreating new Industrial Training Institutes(ITIs) with government and World Bankassistance.The NSDC—established to addressunemployment and underemploymentamong India’s youth, thereby reversing theneglect and stigma of vocational trainingin India—has covered significant ground.By March 2011, it had completed skill-gapanalysis of 21 sectors, approved fundingfor 26 private sector (mostly for profit butalso NGOs) skills providers, which togethertarget to skill about 45 million people inthe next five years. It had also initiated theformation of 28 Sector Skill Councils withindustry collaboration, of which six wereeither approved or incorporated by June2011. The role of these councils is to identifysector skill needs, maintain skill inventory,develop standards, accreditation process,and criteria, plan and execute training oftrainers, promote sector-specific traininginstitutes and so on. In the context of theindustry and developmental requirements,NSDC had also prioritized its targets tofocus on training 30 to 35 million peopleeach in automotive, construction and unorganizedsectors in the short term (BusinessStandard 2011).To meet its mandate of training 150 millionpeople by 2022, NSDC’s challenge isto train/re-skill 15 million workers, on an