1. Who exactly is skilled in India?

The precise definition of skilled labor depends on industry and regional standards.

Skilled Labor Law & Legal Definition:

Skilled labor generally refers to workers who have had long periods of formal training.

Jobs requiring skilled labor may involve the exercise independent judgment and a high degree of manual skill.

Skilled labor may be workers who have special knowledge or qualifications.

As per Minimum wages act:

Highly skilled Skilled Semi-skilled Un-skilledDefinition Highly skilled

work employee is one who does the work which involves skill or competence of extra-ordinary degree and possesses supervisory ability.

Skilled employee is one who is capable of working independently and efficiently and turning out accurate working. He must be capable of reading and working on simple drawing circuits and process, if necessary.

Semi-skilled employee is one who has sufficient knowledge of the particular trade or above to do respective work and simple job with the help of simple tools and machines.

Un-skilled employee is one who possesses no special training and whose work involves the performance of the simple duties which require the exercise of little or no independent judgement or previous experience although a familiarity with the occupational environment is necessary.

Examples Clerical And Supervisiory Staff: Book Clerk, Typist, Receptionist, Telephone Operator, Travelling Salesman,

Electricin, Mechanic, Tailors, Cooks

Gatekeeper(Cinema),Asst. Operator, Asst Electrician, Bookbinder,Waiter Or Bearer, Mali With Technical Experience

Peon, Chowkidar, Durban, Watchman, Cleaner, Sweeper, Loader, Helper, Mali

2. What is the relationship between Formal Education and Skilling?

Ans. Formal education occurs in a structured environment whose explicit purpose is teaching students. Usually formal education takes place in a school environment, with classrooms of multiple students learning together with a trained teacher. Most school systems are designed around a set of values or ideals that govern all educational choices in that system. Such choices include curriculum, physical classroom de sign, student-teacher interactions, and methods of assessment, class size, educational activities, and more. Simultaneously they impart Vocational education which is a form of education focused on direct and practical training for a specific trade or craft which is also Called Skill Development. Vocational education may come in the form of an apprenticeship or internship as well as institutions teaching courses such as carpentry, agriculture, engineering, medicine, architecture and the arts.

It is analyzed Skill acquisition is measured directly through subjective assessments. We find that

higher educated workers are more likely to acquire additional skills. Undereducated workers have lower overall skill acquisition probabilities than adequately educated workers in similar occupations; overeducated workers with a vocational degree acquire fewer transferable or general skills than their adequately educated colleagues. Overeducated workers also acquire fewer additional skills than adequately educated workers with similar educational backgrounds.

3. Is learnings one's occupation with passion called skilling?As per the definitions of skills, it cannot be said that learners occupation with passion is skilling whereas passion can be made occupations and skills pertaining to that can be learned and upskilled time to time.

4. How does one get upskilled. Is compensation factor decides upskilled.Upskilling is to teach or learn an employee additional skills. This is an opportunity to upskill staff and expand their capabilities. Looking at today’s scenario and the compensation parameters in the Indian System Better and advanced skills one possess better the compensation.

5. Should skilling be just CSR Activity?

Ans. It is good, skilling as Corporate Social Activity, but for filling the gap between supply and demand of skilled human resource it should be mandatory for Multi-national companies as well as big corporate houses to spend some percentage (4 -5%) for skilling youth. Each corporate house should have its own training and learning centers wherein they can make the youth employable according to the demand of the market, atleast they should impart the skills to the youth in which the corporate deals. After completion of the program the skilled manpower can be

recruited by the corporate. The best example, is Oberoi Center for learning and Development.

6. There are so many Islands of Success, How to develop Business Model?

Ans. A business model defines how the enterprise delivers value to customers, gets them to pay for that value, and converts those payments to profit. The key is to choose a business model that fits your Life Plan. This will ensure that you spend the right number of hours each week, take the right level of risk (some models involve more risk than others), are practical in terms of your financial wherewithal, and gain the kind of satisfaction and success you’re after. When you go for a full-time business model, you leave behind whatever you were doing previously to commit yourself completely to your startup. When you make this leap, expect to spend more hours working than you ever did working for someone else. Research also shows that when enterprises compete using business models that differ from one another, the outcomes are difficult to predict. One business model may appear superior to others when analyzed in isolation but create less value than the others when interactions are considered. Or rivals may end up becoming partners in value creation. Appraising models in a stand-alone fashion leads to faulty assessments of their strengths and weaknesses and bad decision making. This is a big reason why so many new business models fail.

Moreover, the propensity to ignore the dynamic elements of business models results in many companies failing to use them to their full potential. Few executives realize that they can design business models to generate winner-take-all effects that resemble the network externalities that high-tech companies such as Microsoft, eBay, and Facebook have created. Whereas network effects are an exogenous feature of technologies, winner-take-all effects can be triggered by companies if they make the right choices in developing their business models. Good business models create virtuous cycles that, over time, result in competitive advantage. Smart companies know how to strengthen their virtuous cycles, weaken those of rivals, and even use their virtuous cycles to turn competitors’ strengths into weaknesses.

Four Success Strategies from Failed Business Models.

Anticipate Changing Expectations

Embrace – Don’t Fight – New Technologies

Expand your View of “Human Resources”

Accept the Challenge

http://www.startupnation.com/step/choosing-a-business-model/

7. Example of Subhash Gahi, He spent Rs. 40 crore, is that the right model?

When Subhash Ghai initiated this venture (1992) by involvement of then government it was new concept to be launched in India. An application was submit to allot a piece of land in Mumbai to set up a film library and a school of learning in cinema for the next generation. He offered his money to invest in a campus but on Government land. The application rolled down from 1992 to 1999 with changing Governments. In 2000 he went to Panvel on the outskirts of Mumbai to buy a privately owned 40 acres piece of land for his dream project, which he had designed carefully with three years of research work and had visited 32 film schools world over to design soft skill education for Indian students. In 2003 when Mukta arts had already invested Rs 23 cr in construction of high tech building on 4 acres of land, A PIL was filed in court against the Government for granting this land. The CAG came up with its own calculation alleging under valuation of the land for Rs 3 cr for 15% equity as per Market price of Rs 28.3 cr for the 20 acres. The fact was that the land was neither sold nor transferred but was granted as a ‘license to use' for specific purpose under a joint venture with MSFCDC empowered in 1998 to carry business independently to develop film activities and business on the land owned by government. Many other establishments like ADLAB - a film processing business building were already running their business in film city. The model which Subhash Ghai adopted in 1992 was good enough for that time but it took so long to complete by that time the sheen of the project faded and some legal battles also acted as spoilsport for the venture.

8. What is the genesis of this interaction /conference titled- SKILLING INDIA?

Today’s competitive world demands trained, certified and skilled manpower to address the challenges of growth and converting them into opportunities. This Interaction / conference focuses on the existing strategic and implementation models of Skills Development, both in India and across the world.

India has one of the youngest populations in the world and a very large pool of young English-speaking people. Therefore, it has the potential to meet the skill needs of other countries and also cater to its own demand for skilled manpower.

Ironically, most industries in India are currently struggling with scarcity of skilled labor. Although more than 40 million people are registered in employment exchanges, only 0.2 million get jobs. The current education system does not focus on training young people in employable skills that can provide them with employment opportunities. Today, a large section of India’s labor force has outdated skills. With current and expected economic growth, this challenge is going to only increase further, since more than 75% of new job opportunities are expected to be “skill-based.”

The Government is therefore strongly emphasizing on upgrading people’s skills by providing vocational education and training to them. It has formulated the National Policy on Skill Development and set a target for providing skills to 500 million people by 2022. Various stakeholders are involved in this process.

In the current framework, the Ministry of Labor & Employment is running various schemes and has set up industrial training institutions across the country. Other ministries such as the Ministry of Human Resource Development, the Ministry of Rural Development and the Ministry of Urban Development & Poverty Alleviation have also launched their skill upgrading programs and self-employment schemes.

In addition, as part of its National Skill Development Mission, the Government has established the National Skill Development Corporation in the Public Private Partnership mode to facilitate setting up of large, high quality, for-profit vocational institutions. It also aims to set up 1,500 new ITIs and 5,000 skill development centers across the country as well a National Vocational Qualification Framework (NVQF) for affiliations and accreditation in vocational, educational and training systems.

Realizing the significance and need for skilled manpower, private sector entities are taking several initiatives to contribute effectively to the Government’s endeavors. Across business sectors, companies and industry associations are not only boosting their in-house training facilities, but are also taking steps to make potential employees job-ready before they join organizations.

9. How well equipped are our 12000 ITI’s in India? China has 3.5 lac.

There is a need to equip our existing it is and then focus can be on opening on new it is.Decline in the number of studentsFunding for the ITIs is very low compared to other countries like China and USA which have restructuring-funds, whose share goes for improvement of vocational training systems in order to achieve international quality.Information about this sector is not available from a single source. In fact there is a need to create a central database from where one can get full access on vocational training system right from school level to ITI/ITC institutes.

10.   There is acute shortage of staff & trainers in India?

Ans. For any educational institute a qualified teacher is a bare minimum necessity. But our universities and institutions have shortage of qualified teachers who are inspiring and conscientious. Outdated and rigid curricula, lack of accountability and irregular teachers' training have contributed to the shortage of qualified teachers.

The last published report of government highlighted the massive expansion in higher education; however, lack of deserving Ph.D. candidates for faculty positions has created a shortage of almost 54 percent in faculty talent pool in higher education. This is a moment of truth for all policymakers, bureaucrats, and university administrators who are involved in higher education transformation that shortage of quality faculty represents an enormous stumbling block in the transformation of higher education in India.

To manage this war for talent and improving professional development of teachers we need to prioritise reform in institutional, system and learning and development areas. Return on Investment in these areas should not be estimated only in terms of material profit rather all round development should be included.

At the system level along with new institutions building teaching faculty development mechanisms should be explored. Along with academic staff colleges there is a need to develop a center for teaching and learning at each university, even at the institutional level. In these institutions more emphasis needs to be given on learning outcomes than content teaching. These centers can collaborate with international institutes in order to get the exposure of digital learning technologies. The success of higher education procurement at such a massive level demands involvement of digital learning technologies to meet education demand and for quality enhancement of teaching and learning.

11. To frame policy of Soft Skills

The soft skills course is a classroom-based program that places participants in simulated workplace-related settings and covers areas that include:

Job interviews General expectations Workplace safety Communication skills Team-building & conflict resolution Problem-solving Meetings On-the-job training Customer service Performance review

The soft skills course requires 60 hours of instruction over a one-month period. 

12. How Skilling is going to be part of formal education, at what stage, in what ration, what are the factors which would decide which vocational to be taken by whom.

Skilling – A part of Formal Education

India is projected to become the second largest economy in the world by 2050. The country is also likely to grow to 1.8 million-plus people by 2047, which means there will be an increase in the working population of the country as well.

To leverage this growing population, Skill Development has emerged as an important aspect that needs strategic and planned policy 

The country would have to start from the grass root level, which means educating and training the school and college students in vocational skills.

India’s emergence as a potential economic and social power has a lot to do with the youth.

The only way to leverage the massive opportunities that lay ahead is by developing the employability skills of the youth.

And this should begin as early as possible in their lives. Schools and colleges are the ideal places to impart and so once in a week a program should be established where a light on educating different skills is given both at School and at College Level.

This would help in developing a new understanding of dealing with their friends, family, and the world outside.

This would empower the students and enable them to look at education from different angles.

This would ultimately lead to Raising educational attainment levels. Transitioning to the new economy. Increasing student participation through increased confidence. More knowledge based economy. Ability to communicate effectively.

13.Where is the Market Research for Soft skills?

The growth of technical education has been unprecedented since the privatization of higher education in India. Almost all colleges attract students who meet the required eligibility criteria for enrolling, but unfortunately they are drastically deficient in soft skills and English language proficiency, which in turn makes these students unemployable, even after they complete degree course. Students who have a positive attitude, effective communication skills, problem solving ability, effective time management skills, team spirit, self-confidence, ability to handle criticism -skills that are also known as soft skills as a whole; have better chances of survival in the tough engineering and corporate world, compared to the students who are lacking in soft skills.

Keeping this in mind a lot of research has been done in India on soft skills requirements in India. Following are a few areas and parameters covered by researchers in this field:

1) Employability and skill set of newly graduated engineers in India

2) A global and competition-based model for fostering technical and soft skills in software engineering education

3) Accommodating soft skills in software project management

4) Integrating soft skills assessment through university, college, and programmatic efforts at an AACSB accredited institution

5) The basic characteristics of skills and organizational capabilities in the Indian software industry

6) Using mobile technology and podcasts to teach soft skills

7) Realizing Sustainable Development of Higher Education in India through Soft Skills

8)   Soft-skills training and cultural sensitization of Indian BPO workers: A qualitative study

9) Myths and truths about soft skills

10) How Important Are Soft Skills from the Recruiter's Perspective.

11)The soft skills of global managers

12)Soft Skills: Enhancing Employability: Connecting Campus with Corporate

13)Soft, scarce, and super skills: Sourcing the next generation of migrant workers in India

14)Soft Skills and the Pre Employment Programme: Focus on the University

15)Communication in Cross-Cultural Context.

16)The ACE of Soft Skills: Attitude, Communication and Etiquette for Success

17)Essential hospitality management competencies: The importance of soft skills

14.Let us create Scalable Skills Dev. Programmes

SKILL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME

There are two major trends in the world that pose a fundamental challenge--and many opportunities--to our educational system. One is the world is shifting from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy. The other is the rising generation--brought up on the Internet--is very differently motivated to learn.

There are basically 7 main types of skills needed in students

1. Critical thinking and problem-solving2. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence3. Agility and adaptability4. Initiative and entrepreneurialism5. Effective oral and written communication6. Accessing and analyzing information7. Curiosity and imagination

To identify skill development one can make a skill development chart as given listing skills on one side and the scale improvement on the other.

IDENTIFYING SKILL DEVELOPMENT

SKILL TYPE RATING

BEFORE TRAINING AFTER TRAINING

A B C A B C

1. THINKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING

2. LEADERSHIP

3. ADAPTABILITY

4. INITIATIVE

5.ANALYTICAL

15.How many Depts of GOI doing Skills Today?Various Ministries/ Depts/ Organisations

National Skill Development Corporation Labor and employment HRD higher education Transport Rural development (RUDSETI) and IL & FS Agriculture Construction Industry Development Council Urban development Micro small medium enterprises

Textiles Women and child welfare Department of Heavy Industry Department of Information Technology Health and family welfare Finance-Insurance/ Banking Consumer affairs Tourism Food processing industries Social justice and empowerment Overseas Indian affairs Chemicals and fertilizers Others (Power, petroleum, etc.)

16.What are the steps taken to ensure inclusiveness of the skill development initiatives?

NSDA is working with various ministries to coordinate inclusiveness of the skill development initiative in the country. This covers

• Geographical inclusiveness in terms of target states such as Jammu & Kashmir, North Eastern States, Tribal Areas, Rural Belts and Urban Belts and LWE areas

• Economic inclusiveness in terms of schemes for unemployed, under-employed, people below poverty line, rural poor and urban poor

• Gender inclusive in terms of schemes specifically focused on women

• Demographic inclusiveness in terms of schemes focused on youths, school dropouts, uneducated, adult literacy etc.

• Caste based inclusiveness in terms of schemes focused on SC/ST and other minorities

17.What are the various sources of funds for skill development?

Funds for skill development are available from multiple sources. Funds available for individuals through Loans for vocational education from banks, Reward such as the STAR scheme, Grants, Scholarships from Ministry of Minority Affairs, National SC/ ST Finance Corporations etc, Voucher programmes run by State Governments ( eg Gujarat) and Construction workers Cess.

Funds available for Skill Development Providers from Central & State Governments and NSDC

Other organisations that provide funding for both individuals and skill development

organizations include Trusts,. NGO’s, International foundations, CSR funds from corporate, Corporate Sector , High net worth individuals and Development agencies

18.What are the skill development facilities available for the North Eastern States?

Various Ministries have skill initiatives in North East. These include -Ministry of Labour, Ministry of husing and Poverty Alleviation, North East Council, Department of North East Region, State Skills Missions and NSDC

The Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE) has sanctioned a new centrally sponsored scheme ‘Enhancing Skill Development Infrastructure in North East States and Sikkim’ to upgrade 20 ITIs and supplement deficient infrastructure in 28 ITIs at an overall budget of INR 57.4 crores.

The Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region is focusing on the socio-economic development of the North Eastern region and driving various developmental initiatives for this region.

19.What are some examples of skill development initiatives in the North Eastern States?

Such examples include

• ITIs in Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura revamped and upgraded in partnership with private sector organizations like Tata Motors, VLCC, HUL

• NVEQF pilot launched in schools in partnership with Pearson India and IndiaCan

• UK-India Education Research Initiative (UKIERI) driven project to upgrade hospitality training in 5 ITIs in Assam in partnership with Westminster Kingsway College

• The private sector has also initiated a number of programmes in the North East through NSDC.

20.What we are doing on the shop floor of education and what is requirement of corporate sector?

Ans. Education has been a problem in our country and lack of it has been blamed for all sorts of evil for hundreds of years. Even Rabindranath Tagore wrote lengthy articles about how Indian education system needs to change. 

Funny thing is that from the colonial times, few things have changed. We have established IITs, IIMs, law schools and other institutions of excellence; students now routinely score 90% marks so that even students with 90+ percentages find it difficult to get into the colleges of their choice; but we do more of the same old stuff. The very big question that comes to everyone’s mind is: What we are doing? The answer to this question is very important to analyze thoroughly to make out a plan of action to redefine teaching learning process and hence revolutionize the current education system of the country. Every parent asks their ward will they be able to score more than 80% or not. No one ever gives emphasis weather they have technical knowledge or not? Will they get job or not? And when their wards are jobless they have a readymade excuse: “This is due to recession otherwise my ward was brilliant”.The things which we are following in our education system are described below:

i. Rote Learning: Rote learning is a memorization technique based on repetition. The idea is that one will be able to quickly recall the meaning of the material the more one repeats it. Yes, we do know that many schools across India are trying to bring in interactive education and we laud that immensely. But the evil of rote learning is yet to be wiped out from a majority of Indian schools. Owing to the fixated style of question papers that have been doing the rounds in board exams from time immemorial, rote learning has continued. We’re very sure that most students won’t be clear about many of the basic foundation concepts taught in school even after they’ve graduated.

ii. Very less or No Practical knowledge: The major problem these days is that we are not able to make a connection between what we teach in the classroom to its practical application in outer world. Take a simple example: A student who has mathematics in his +1 & +2 standard will surely know about Integration, but none of them have practically implemented the Integration in real life. This thing makes the teaching-learning process boring.

iii. System of private Tuition classes: The teacher who doesn’t teach anything in the school teaches very efficiently at the private tuition centers very efficiently. Why is it so?

iv. So Called ‘Social Ethics’: “Rohan didn’t opted for Science stream. He must be poor in studies.” Why this discrimination? How long are we going to look down upon vocational streams and look up to medicine, engineering, the IIT’s and the IIM’s? Students at the school level need to be educated through career counseling regarding the kind of streams that exist and what importance each of them plays to make an economy diverse.

All this factors plays a major role when it comes to get a job in the country. According to WikiPedia the unemployment rate of in India is 8.8% which is quiet high.

The main reason why we can’t coup up with this is that we don’t understand what actually corporate demands. We are not able to change our education system as

fast as our corporate world is changing. This is not only the responsibility of teacher or school; it is the responsibility of each and every person of this nation to make a concrete foundation for the Education System in India and hence minimize this unemployment rate. We have to understand what is the current demand of the corporate sector now a days. Some of the major demands of corporate world are described below:

Focus on Skill Based Education: Our education system is geared towards teaching and testing knowledge at every level as opposed to teaching skills. “Give a man a fish and you feed him one day, teach him how to catch fishes and you feed him for a lifetime.” I believe that if you teach a man a skill, you enable him for a lifetime. Knowledge is largely forgotten after the semester exam is over. Still, year after year Indian students focus on cramming information. The best crammers are rewarded by the system. This is one of the fundamental flaws of our education system.

Reward creativity, original thinking, research and innovation: Our education system rarely rewards what deserves highest academic accolades. Deviance is discouraged. Risk taking is mocked. Our testing and marking systems need to be built to recognize original contributions, in form of creativity, problem solving, valuable original research and innovation. If we could do this successfully Indian education system would have changed overnight.

Implement massive technology infrastructure for education: India needs to embrace internet and technology if it has to teach all of its huge population, the majority of which is located in remote villages. Now that we have computers and internet, it makes sense to invest in technological infrastructure that will make access to knowledge easier than ever. Instead of focussing on outdated models of brick and mortar colleges and universities, we need to create educational delivery mechanisms that can actually take the wealth of human knowledge to the masses. The tools for this dissemination will be cheap smartphones, tablets and computers with high speed internet connection. While all these are becoming more possible than ever before, there is lot of innovation yet to take place in this space.

Allow private capital in education: The government cannot afford to provide higher education to all the people in the country. It is too costly for the government to do so. The central government spends about 4% of budget expenditure on education, compared to 40% on defence. Historically, the government just did not have enough money to spend on even opening new schools and universities, forget overhauling the entire system and investing in technology and innovation related to the education system. Still, until today, at least on paper only non-profit organizations are allowed to run educational institutions apart from government institutions. Naturally, the good money, coming from honest investors who want to earn from honest but high impact businesses do not get into education sector. Rather, there are crooks, money launderers and politicians opening “private” educational institutions which extract money from the educational institution through creative structuring. The focus is

on marketing rather than innovation or providing great educational service – one of the major examples of this being IIPM.

Country Initiative

New Zealand

• National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), the largest open schooling system in the world, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with New Zealand’s Open Polytechnic to promote the role of vocational schooling in India.• The Open Polytechnic has provided two scholarships to the NIOS staff to study its certiicate courses in designing and e-learning. Furthermore, the institutes are planning to develop online courses and a “train-the-trainers” program.

Germany • The Indo-German Joint Working Group on Vocational Education is working with the Government of Karnataka to develop multi-skills development centers, replicating the German Dual system. These centers will have world- class infrastructure.• iMove, an initiative by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) to impart vocational training, has signed an agreement with NSDC to support the development of SSCs and thetraining of trainers.

Australia • The Bureau for Vocational Education and Training Collaboration (BVETC) was established by Australia and India in 2010 to facilitate skill development operations. The agency delivers courses in India through local partners and works toward improving linkages between the government, industry and various institutions.• The Victorian Government has contributed AU$300,000 (approx. US$272,000) to train 325 Indian vocational trainers. A prominent vocational education provider from Australia offers diploma courses in automotive technology and aircraft maintenance engineering in Maharashtra.

UK • The UK has cooperated and extended its expertise in setting up SSCs. The UK India Skills Forum (UKISF) provides a platform for organizations across the technical and vocational education sectors in the UK and India for imparting skills.• UKISF works closely with UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), which helps in identifying business opportunities in the skills domain. Thrust areas of the forum include knowledge transfer, localization of services for India, and training and accreditation of trainers.21.New skills policy before end of this financial year in India. Taking

dynamic core element.