‘We need to redefine vocational learning, our attitudes to it’
For many years, India has struggled with higher-level competencies and skills that aid employability.
This includes our ability to use present-day technologies to perform complex tasks in an efficient manner. With economic growth, massive reforms in the primary education sector, mass movement of human resources to urban areas, demographic changes and intercontinental competitiveness, we are witnessing growth in different skilling avenues.
As one of the youngest nations in the world, with over 54% of the total population below the age of 25, India needs to repurpose the current annual skilling capacity to match the current skill demand. More initiatives need to be taken to align the skills of the youth and spruce their personality to compensate for the lack of coordination, both at the industry and government level.
Vocational education needs to be the word of the day, and challenges that come by rapid digitisation need to be addressed. Manufacturing, which will need to compete with the world’s best, and the offline retail sector, which is facing pressure from online stores, must be preserved.
Private sector participation through offline boot camps, structured skills upgradation programmes and the creation of opportunities at the plus-two level need to be encouraged for smoother transition. My recommendation here stands on two premises. The first one is that schools need to understand the importance and urgency of vocational education and rise above the blackboard and chalk method of teaching. Second, jobs could be lost in the traditional information technology space, following the numerous developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning.
These lead us to the question - will there be colossal unemployment as a result of these factors? The short answer is, no.
The truth is that jobs are being lost because of lack of skills and not lack of employment opportunities.
Media and entertainment is a big field which has just recently made its presence felt in India – careers in animation, visual effects, story-boarding, writing
and content planning and execution are here to stay.
We are exposed to a huge number of screens; the data bandwidth available today couldn’t even be thought of a few years ago, subscriptionbased OTT (or Over The Top) platforms have changed the way we consume entertainment, sports and news, in just a little over two years.
With average household incomes rising steadily, more Indians are spending on well-being and appearance. Hence, the beauty industry is witnessing double-digit growth. The ondemand services ecosystem, is rewriting services for the Indian consumer.
More entrepreneurs are rejecting 10-to-5 jobs to build their own businesses. The rise of salon-at-home services has transformed the beauty market. Well-run demand beauty services are booming. Do we have enough manpower to cater to it? No. Do we need it? Yes.
In the service-at-home space, the top categories by contribution to revenue are beauty, home repairs, electrical, plumbing and carpentry.
Collectively, the education system needs to review its priorities. The lens that an engineering education is the hallmark of a great career is being broken, day after day, and the realisation that not everyone needs to be a post-graduate to have a great career is systematically being proven.
The process starts at the school level. I believe that today’s youth understand their role in the new-age economy well. The defining moment will come when we as educationists realise that.
The writer is group chief marketing officer at Aptech