STAR Scheme to catalyse the skills ecosystem.
| Author | Chenoy, Dilip H.M. |
| Position | By Invitation |
National Policy on Skill Development
The National Policy on Skill Development 2009 provides the vision and framework to radically transform the skills landscape in our country. Since 2009, there have been a series of initiatives to increase the number of people who are being skilled in the country annually, to improve the quality and outcomes of the skill delivery system and to reduce cost and make the entire framework sustainable. There is a twin approach to address this. First, strengthen and streamline various programs being run by the Central and State governments and the second, increase the role and participation of the private sector in skill development.
With a large and growing labour force, recent studies state that nearly 300 million in the age group of 18 to 50 are unemployed because of the lack of job related skills. On the other hand many sectors of industry face an acute shortage of skilled workers. There are people without jobs and jobs without people. The most effective solution for this situation is to facilitate employment and enhance employability of the workforce by ensuring job-oriented professional skills training. It can skill raw labor, provide training at school level to make students employable and at the same time reduce dependency on higher education by acting as low cost option for young people to become active contributors to the economy.
To fill the need gaps that were identified, the Government of India has taken up skill development as a national priority over the decade. The Eleventh Five Year Plan detailed a road-map for skill development in India, and helped frame Skill Development Missions, both at the State and National levels. To create such an institutional base for skill development in India at the national level, the National Skill Development Coordination Agency (NSDA) and the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) were created in 2012 and 2008 respectively. The objective has been to garner support and partnership from both the private and the public sectors to deal with India's problem of unskilled labor and employment.
When the program began, we saw considerable response from the youth but some of the issues that we noticed were that: first, joining a skill development program was not aspirational, second, there were no common standards that existed from an employer's standpoint for specific job roles, third, employers did not have a role in the assessment and certification process and fourth, paying for the skill training was a challenge for many. Identifying the challenge the Government of...
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