In August 2020, India announced the National Education Policy (NEP), which set the goal to make awareness about vocational skill training accessible to nearly 50 percent of learners across the country, by 2025. The policy acknowledged the issues around information asymmetry and dignity of labour which have made vocational skilling non-aspirational in the past. It then called for the integration of vocational education into the school system, through coordination with skill development organisations and employers.
For those of us in the vocational skilling sector, this was definitely a welcome step. For children, exposure to vocational education will enable better expectation setting and career planning directed towards jobs which are readily available. For youth, this could open the doors for access to new age skills which will be valued by industry in the future. For older workers, it could give them the opportunity to upskill and re-skill themselves to keep up with the shift in demand that has been accelerated this year, due to the pandemic.
However, in the Union Budget 2021-22, there was hardly any mention of skill development. Funds have reduced for education and no additional funds have been allocated for the NEP. The onus of creating aspirations for vocational skilling at a time when youth employed in such sectors are becoming increasingly vulnerable, has thus fallen to the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) fund.
Over the course of this year, youth in India have had to come to terms with their economic vulnerability, which may have been hitherto unexposed. Wages have reduced, vacancies come with health risks, benefits have disappeared. This raises a pertinent question: How is the pandemic going to shape the future aspirations of young people in India?
At Pratham, we turned to our alumni to see if they can help us figure out the answer. A group of 1,473 candidates, who completed their training with Pratham between 2017-2019, participated in three telephonic interviews, each conducted with a gap of three to four months, over the course of 2020. All of these candidates had completed some form of vocational skilling, and 54 percent were engaged in some form of employment as of January 2020.1 It is important to note here that these youth were working in jobs where working at home was not an option, and wages are usually paid based on productivity at work. We asked them their current activity status and aspirations for the future, and here’s what we found:
Notably, less than 18 percent of interviewed youth indicated willingness to move beyond the boundaries of their home district. These newly unemployed youth, who had previously migrated across the country for work, were now hesitant to accept new job offers and were fearful about returning to the cities which used to employ them a year ago. While this fear may be temporary and most youth will be driven back to work out of a lack of choice, the labour demand side should be aware that these youth are cognisant of the volatility and vulnerability associated with their employment.
Given the challenges faced by blue-collar workers during this pandemic, does further investment in vocational skilling hold merit?
The pandemic has exacerbated the need for valuing skilled individuals in both rural and urban India.
India is a democracy with the youngest and largest workforce (over 500 million with an average age of 29), of which 81 percent of youth are employed by the informal economy, and only an approximate of 15 percent can claim to earn a salaried income. In this scenario, the world of artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation is restricted to a niche corner, while the larger majority is employed by agriculture, construction, and service sector work. If anything, the pandemic has exacerbated the need for valuing skilled individuals in both rural and urban India.
Blue-collar trades are the primary employers in this country today. The NEP offers us an opportunity to tie those jobs to the aspirations of youth. The momentum offered by the introduction of the NEP, should be seized by nonprofit organisations, industry leaders, and CSR partners. Even with limited resources, there are numerous ways to make vocational skilling aspirational. These include:
Digital resources and hybrid models have allowed us to reimagine education, skilling, and employment. The NEP offers a window of opportunity for stakeholders to work together to change some historic practices, re-dignify labour, and take the next leap to bring youth in India closer to the future of work.
—
—