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Why you need new-age skills for new-age careers

By Sunil Dahiya

Here’s what you need to understand is new and latest skills are directly proportionate to new-age careers.

The job scenario in India has been undergoing a rapid change in the last few decades. By 2022, it is expected that almost 37% of the workforce in India would be in jobs that will require radically changed skill sets. As a result, there is a growing acknowledgement of the need to understand:

Which sectors are going to create jobs at scale? What new-age skills are needed? How can productivity be enhanced?

More than 50% of the country’s population is under 25 years. Therefore, the need for Industry 4.0 for an efficient, well-trained workforce has resulted in a focus on early skill development.

Till recently, only 10% of the Indian workforce received formal skill training and according to Aspiring Minds, “a mere 26% of engineers are employable, and our students are not ready for the next decade”.

Promoting vocational training and skill development

But times are changing with the new emphasis on promoting vocational training and skill development in collaboration with various stakeholders. For example, the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana has been set up to streamline skill development initiatives.

This is why many vocational and skill development companies are proactively involved in imparting essential skills training. The drive is also being augmented by the Government of India’s plan to train 400 million Indians by 2022 through the National Skill Development Mission.

Companies involved with skilling are customizing training as per their requirements and are doing their bit to bridge the skill gap by developing a skilled and certified labour force.

Skilling institutes are imparting relevant, employment-worthy skills. As the current infrastructure of ITIs (Industrial Training Institutes), ITCs (Industrial Training Centers) and other government-aided institutes are not enough to train people for future job opportunities, the penetration of digital platforms is opening doors for learners as well as the industry to get a tech-savvy individual with higher productivity from day one.

Lack of infrastructure

India will need far more vocational training centres to skill its millions. The current infrastructure is not enough to cater to the growing needs.

Government collaboration with the industry will be essential not only in augmenting skills but also in ensuring skilling in the right domains as required as per the industry’s requirements.

This will also require large numbers to train and manage the training programs.

Key factors

  • Key driving factors like technology, e-commerce and telecommunication are impacting all the industries to redefine their transformation strategies for their product and services.
  • The advent of digital technology is forcing the industry to undertake digital transformation
  • This applies to almost all sectors including technology, BFSI, healthcare, retail, transportation, hospitality, tourism, beauty, textiles, aviation and many more, and opens up a vast requirement of talent with new skills

New digital courses and new job opportunities are opening up in the skill development sectors.

Two types of skill sets

The ‘Future of Jobs Report 2018′ by the World Economic Forum postulates that generic skills will no longer hold good. Instead, two types of skill sets will come to the fore: First, those with highly evolved technical capabilities (Machine Learning, Big Data Robotics etc.) and Second, ‘human’ skills (Sales and Marketing, Training and Development, Organizational Development etc.).

This clearly shows that while half of the skills needed to succeed in the future are cognitive, the other 50% focuses on human connections and collaborations at work.

It is imperative that the development of new-age skills as per the demands of the economy and industry is integrated into the formal education system right from the school stage. Simultaneously, skill creation outside the formal education system needs a more concerted and improvised action at each step to counter the inherent challenges.

Peter Drucker captures it most aptly when he says, “The only skill that will be important in the 21st century is the skill of learning new skills. Everything else will become obsolete over time.”

Source: India Today