Although India has the much talked about population dividend and the required focus on rural employment programs, a recent NSSO survey highlights the fact that the unemployment levels in India have been fluctuating for the last decade.
The fact that more young people are attending educational institutions is true but it does not support another striking fact that there are still 25 million unemployed youth in the country, according to a NSSO survey. The major concern is this educated but unemployed youth of the country.

Are we criticizing the educational system of our country? No, what we are advocating is need of a parallel system with the existing one. Skilling our youth can be the solution for bringing down this unemployment.

 

There are a number of degree and diploma holders who pass out every year but most of them are unemployable because they lack the skills, manufacturing and services industries look for. Out of many graduates who pass out every year, only 20 per cent would meet the industry requirements. The rest would have to go through rigorous training before businesses could find them useful. Why not parallelly train these youth so that they become eligible for certification after they are skilled? Skilled youth with certification are more likely to land up with an opportunity in any formal sector.

Inflated Job Scenario

Although it is evident that unemployment levels are inflated for urban youth as compared to the youth from rural India but the capacity of the poor sections of the society to absorb credit and to start enterprises is limited because of their inability to get themselves certified.

 

Certification has been a basic criterion for regulating and standardizing the employment market in the world. In order to realize these opportunities, youth with certified skills are required to capture the major share of growth. 

Youth should focus to upgrade skills and get themselves certified so thatthey make themselves employable in the emerging industries and trades. This will ensure employment on a regular basis with a decent salary, rather than facing the risk of operating in an uncertain market.

Need for Rigorous Implementation

Therefore, the strategy of focusing on skill upgradation through certification makes much more sense than the NRLM supported by the Rural Development Ministry that aims on self-employment. On the similar lines, a more rigorous system needs to be well implemented where the government plays a key role in policy development, standards setting, financing and monitoring and evaluation, while promoting greater competitiveness and accountability by private training and testing providers.

It has formulated the National Policy on Skill Development and set a target for providing skills to 500 million people by 2022. The government has set up the National Skill Development Mission (NSDM) to bring about a paradigm shift in skill development.

Youth4work: Sharing a Vision

Youth4work shares a similar vision and hence we support a well-designed skills training program by providing a platform that helps unemployed youth to test new skills, upgrade existing skills and find satisfactory employment. Considering the prevailing challenges, we believe that companies do not wish to hire the entry level workers directly. They outsource the entry level staff by appointing labor contractors and staffing companies. Also, individuals with some skills find it difficult to break through without a formal certification. We simplify such complexities.

In India, as the facts above speak, youth if not properly skilled will lack employment. Therefore, Youth4work has dusted out a space within itself to implement the initiative by the Government which aims at skilling and employing them.Specially for rural India, we aid training centers to connect with companies to get job opportunities for skilled people. To have solid steps forward, we also have collaborated with IFFCO to develop a unique platform called 'IFFCO YUVA' to cater this part of the country.

We provide support to the training partners by empowering them with online practice tests, based on NOS (National Occupation Standards), for 500+ job-roles certification assessments under 27 Sector Skill Councils. Apart from preparation tests, we manage their data and help them better track the skilled youth to have a focused and well segmented database. This organized data about youth, their acquired skills, their job opportunities, and communication with companies is a progressive step taken by Youth4work so that it later helps government agencies to better monitor and visualize the situation of rural India.

Jobs Vs Candidates

Youth4work has strictly followed NSDC provided syllabus under QP-NOS according to which training partners can offerpractice teststo students. Approximately 1.5 lakh practice question attempts have been made by people across India, on the Youth4work platform helping them clear the certifications.

 

From more than a million Youth profiles and thousands of jobs posted on Youth4work it was observed that there are almost 200 candidates for one job listed all over India. This figure for urban India is 30 candidates per job whereas for rural India it is 13 candidates per job listed on Youth4work. So, it is seen that there are more job opportunities available on the platform for Rural Youth.

I firmly believe in materializing the aim into reality, it is pertinent to enforce technology solutions to ensure building employable skills, motivating people for lifelong learning and conveniently connecting employers with the respective skilled workforce.

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