Technological Interventions for Sustainable Skill

Development Programs in India

Muthukumar Chockalingam

, Virupaksha Goud G.

, Ajith Padyana

, M. Muthukumar

and S. Viswanathan

Department of Chemistry, Acharya Institute of Technology, Soldevanahalli, Bengaluru, India

Department of Management Studies, Acharya Institute of Technology, Soldevanahalli, Bengaluru, India

Department of Computer Sciences and Engineering, Acharya Institute of Technology, Soldevanahalli, Bengaluru, India

Department of Aeronautical Engineering, Acharya Institute of Technology, Soldevanahalli, Bengaluru, India

Department of Industrial Chemistry, Alagappa University, Karaikudi, India

Keywords: Skill Training, Technological Interventions, Sustainable Development, Vocational Education, Employability

Skills.

Abstract: A skilled workforce is a fundamental element of a vibrant economy and sustainable livelihood in any country.

In the recent past, India has launched various skill-building initiatives/models to enhance and increase the

skilled workforce. The existing models have yielded good results in identifying the skill needs of the country.

However, it has lacked in implementation, monitoring and identification of trainers and trainees. Also, the

existing model has been lagging in setting up proper training infrastructure for imparting skills among the

beneficiaries. Besides, the current models are ineffective in addressing major challenges including societal

perception and awareness. With fast-changing industry requirements and the growing aspirations of youth,

changes in the skill development strategies are the need of the hour. In this paper, we explored the existing

skill development programs run by the Government of India in public and public-private partnership models.

After a thorough and systematic analysis of the existing model and by comparing it with other models, we

propose a technological intervention-based model for sustainable skill development programs in India. It may

act as a one-stop solution to bridge the skill gaps by involving all stakeholders, including beneficiaries,

industries, government, and trainers/training centers.

1 INTRODUCTION

Equipping the workforce with the right skills required

for the jobs of today and those of tomorrow is a

strategic concern in the national growth and

sustainable development. Decent work, a universal

aspiration, is the best path to self-advancement of

women and men. It fosters the stability of

communities and families. Skills are pivotal to decent

work strategies and skill training programs have been

viewed as a medium to eliminate unemployment (Jain

et al., 2019). There is a sincere effort by international

policy makers in building a strong bridge between the

world of work and short term training providers in

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order to match skill needs of enterprises. At its core,

the skill training initiatives are designed to create a

sustainable livelihood for deserving beneficiaries.

The training programs are often operated at the sector

level where there is a direct participation of

employers and workers together with government and

training providers. Government policies and

measures are required to facilitate access to training

and skills development by individuals and

economically weaker groups including poverty and

low income, ethnic origin, disability and migrant

status. Adequate public-private partnership initiatives

are critical to ensure sustainable skill development

programs. Further, a continuous workplace training

418

Chockalingam, M., G., V., Padyana, A., Muthukumar, M. and Viswanathan, S.

Technological Interventions for Sustainable Skill Development Programs in India.

DOI: 10.5220/0011363900003350

In Proceedings of the 5th International Scientiﬁc Congress Society of Ambient Intelligence (ISC SAI 2022) - Sustainable Development and Global Climate Change, pages 418-425

ISBN: 978-989-758-600-2

and lifelong learning would enable workers and

enterprises to adjust to an increasingly rapid pace of

change in technologies and requirements. Skill

training not only generates employment opportunity,

but is also important in sustainable economic

development. A case study on skill development

training programme highlights the importance of skill

training and its impact on the GDP of India

(Venkateshwarlu, Sharma and Agarwal, 2016). In

short term skill trainings, Internet of Things based

technologies have been explored to improve decision

making process and to achieve important educational

objectives (Vihervaara and Alapaholuoma, 2017). In

this paper, we have discussed the existing skill

development model, its key challenges and proposed

a holistic approach including a technological

intervention strategy for achieving a sustainable skill

development program. Effective grass root strategies

including change management tactics, alternative

resources for training and technological interventions

have been discussed in depth. Technological

interventions can in fact catalyze the program by

linking all stakeholders with up-to-date information

and opportunities in the sector.

2 EXISTING MODEL

Vocational education is traditionally non-

academic and teaches the skills and knowledge

required for a particular trade, craft or job function.

These training program provide job-specific technical

training, with hands-on instructions. In India,

Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship

(MSDE) through National Skill Development

Corporation (NSDC) has implemented Pradhan

Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) 2016-20

with a target to cover 10 million youth in the country

with a budget allocation of Rs.120 billions. The

scheme is implemented with the objective to enable a

large number of Indian youth to take up relevant skill

training that will help them in securing a better

livelihood. It was a reward based scheme, which

provided entire cost of training as reward to

successful candidates. PMKVY has two components:

 Centrally sponsored Centrally Managed:

This component consists of 75% of the PMKVY and

is being implemented centrally through NSDC.

 Centrally Sponsored State Managed:

The component consists of 25% of the PMKVY and

is being implemented by the states as per the local

needs.

2.1 Selection of Beneficiaries

The skill training imparted at government training

centers (TCs) is aimed towards the candidates who

are:

 School/college dropouts

 Unemployed

 Low income groups

 Marginalized sections of the society

Upon successful completion of training and

certification, candidates are provided placement

assistance by training partners (TPs). As per new

education policy, the skill development program has

been planned at the school level itself at the age of 13

years along with academics. For example, if a student

opts for motor repair as a skill development course

while in school, at a later stage, he can opt for a

diploma or degree in automobile engineering. Skill

training for students while in school helps them

achieve sustainable livelihood in case if they drop out

of school due to their economic constraints. To bridge

the skill gaps in the school curriculum, a two year

model for skill development during class 9-10 or 11-

12, has been implemented in Haryana by PMKVY

(Rani, 2021).

2.2 Selection of Sectors

The government has conducted an extensive skill gap

study and identified about 333 job roles that are in

demand across 36 sectors (PMKVY, 2018). Some

priority sectors with job roles are shown in Figure 1.

New roles sectors are introduced into the skill

development program after periodic assessment of

needs and demands by sector specific councils (SSC).

There are 38 SSCs currently operational. The

governing councils of SSCs involve over 600

corporate representatives to create strategies and

operational plans for standardized skill training as per

the industrial requirements.

2.3 Training Program

Duration of the training varies according to the job

role, however, the majority of courses range between

200-600 hrs (2-6 months). The training is provided

according to the National Skills Qualification

Framework (NSQF) in different job roles with Soft

Skills, Entrepreneurship, Financial and Digital

Literacy curriculum, a part of the curriculum. For

example, in agriculture sector, PMKVY provides

training on 36 job roles including animal health

worker,

bamboo grower, medicinal plants grower,

Technological Interventions for Sustainable Skill Development Programs in India

419

Figure 1: Supply and demand of skilled manpower in various sectors in India. Courtesy: PMKVY.

http://www.pmkvyofficial.org/Training-Centre.aspx

organic grower, micro irrigation technician, solar

pump technician.

The youngest nation, India needs millions of

skilled trainers to skill over 500 million youth,

(Misra, 2015). Standardization of trainers and finding

the skill needs of India and the world market is crucial

for sustainable skill development. Further there is a

need to develop local trainers as the trainers need to

explain things in their mother tongue to students to

enhance the scope of skill development programs. As

per the PMKVY portal data, 6116 training centers

have been established and currently operational

contributing to train the unemployed youth and low

income group on different job roles. The training

centers have spread across states and union territories,

bringing up a significant change in the skill

landscapes.

2.4 Outcomes

Skill India was a flagship programme launched by the

government in the year 2015 has led to

transformational change in India’s vocational training

ecosystem. As per the government reports, nearly

2.04 million youth have been trained under the

mission (NSDC, 2020). However, only 0.186 million

trained youth have been reported officially placed.

Placement data available indicates that only about

9.1% of the persons trained were able to get the

employment.

3 RESEARCH GAPS

India has an advantage of demographic dividend to

achieve high economic growth however skilled

manpower appears to be biggest challenge in every

sector, Figure 1, reflect the skill gap in each sector.

For example, in agriculture sector there is a major gap

between demand and supply of trained manpower.

Training the manpower with latest developments in

various job roles would enhance productivity while

providing sustainable livelihood to the beneficiaries.

Government of India has initiated several programs to

fill up this gap but not seeing the expected outcome

for planned programs.

Figure 2: Illustrates key challenges and tools to address the

challenges.

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420

The entire skill training activity is facing multiple

challenges. In this view this research article is an

attempt to understand the challenges and suggest

holistic model for sustainable skill development

model.

4 KEY CHALLENGES

This section illustrates various challenges of skill

development program. Here we have identified and

classified all the challenges into four category; social

challenges, infrastructural challenges, governance

issues and operation issues. For sustainable

implementation, skill commission need to address all

the challenges.

4.1 Social Challenges

Changing one’s mind in favour of vocational

education seems to be a big challenge. This also

becomes a non-polar choice and it has been

stigmatized, many perceive it as an inferior option

compared with formal education. The social

challenges may include poor awareness, perceptions

and poor aspirations (Joshi and Pandey, 2021).

4.1.1 Poor Awareness

Despite 76% of youth interested in enrolling

themselves in skill development programmes, 70% of

adults aren’t aware of the much publicized skill

development programmes run by the government to

boost employment, according to a major study (BI

India Bureau, 2018). The findings also suggest that the

youth is more interested in sectors which are

expecting less growth in the coming five years,

pointing out the mismatch between youth aspirations

and industry demands. Inclusive awareness strategies

involving all stakeholders are needed to catalyse the

skill development initiatives.

4.1.2 Aspiration Issues

Generally, children and parents prefer to enter the

general academic schools, however, unlike India; the

Chinese government encourages the adoption of

vocational education by incentivizing it financially

(Mehrotra, 2016). Even parents, at times, behave so

carelessly that the very essence of the vocational

course is undermined (Kaur and Dogra, 2018). There

is a critical need for creating an encouraging

environment for skill development in India (Tara and

Kumar, 2016).

4.1.3 Poor Perceptions

In today’s society, many young people avoid blue

collar jobs as they feel it is a less valued profession.

Due to this perception, people often flock to white

collar jobs. Unfortunately this problem has led to a

shortage of skilled blue collar workers taking

important job roles such as welders, machinists,

freight carriers, tractor operators, irrigation

technicians, lab technicians and so on.

4.2 Infrastructure Challenges

4.2.1 Training Infrastructure

The existing scheme is sound, however due to

stringent approval processes, a much less number of

training centers (TCs) have come up in the last five

year of the program. For example, in agriculture

sector, the employment base is 220 million, but the

number of training centers have been created for this

sector is only 120 as shown in Figure 1. The data

reveals that there is mismatch between skilled labor

and demand (Jagtiani, 2013).

4.2.2 Skilled Trainers

The other problem faced by the skill development

program is trainers to train on needed semi skills. This

problem is basically due to excess dependency on

formal education and white collar job expectation. In

the prevailing situation identifying suitable trainers is

a big challenge as existing professionals do not have

any accreditation to work as skill trainers. To train

millions of youth and unemployed in various job

roles, a few million trainers are neededd and the

challenge need to be addressed.

4.3 Governance Issues

4.3.1 Convergence of Schemes

There are 36 different bodies in India running skill

development programs. The subsidiaries of these

bodies are working at the state level. There are a

considerable duplication and overlap of work by these

agencies. Therefore, there is a need to converge the

efforts of these departments/ministries to give a

composite package of skill development. Lack of

coordination between different agencies will result in

poor outcomes (Saini, 2015).

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421

4.3.2 Involvement of Private Firms

A survey conducted by World Bank Enterprise in

2014 showed that only 35.9 percent of firms in India

are funding the formal training of their employees. In

comparison, 79.2 percent of Chinese firms are

supporting skill training. This is with reference to

formal employee force, not much training happening

for informal employee force. Therefore, there is a

challenge before the government to convince the

private firms to invest in skill development initiatives

(Nataraj, 2014). Private sector may be considered for

curriculum development and policy formulation

related to educational and vocational training (Pilz

and Regel, 2021).

4.4 Operational Issues

The present skill training activity run under multiple

platforms and facing several coordination and

monitoring issues. This flaw is one of the reason for

poor visibility and low success rate of the program.

Even though India is a technologically advanced

country, the same is not reflecting in skill training

implementations. The flaws can be solved by using

suitable technological tools where ever suitable.

5 INTERVENTIONS

5.1 Social Interventions

As discussed earlier altering the social perception,

while creating awareness and aspirations, is necessary

for successful implementation of the skill training

program. The perception can be altered through

enhanced visibility and recognition activities.

Awareness can be brought using local media and

effective reach programs. Aspiration generation is

another important requirement which can be achieved

through success stories of previous beneficiaries and

by showcasing employment opportunities and better

earnings available in the present system.

5.2 Infrastructure Interventions

Infrastructural challenges can be addressed by

leveraging existing facilities in urban and semi urban

areas. Any under-utilized educational and non-

educational institutions which can be chosen for skill

training activity to fill up the perceived infrastructure

bottleneck. Skilled trainers are the foundation for the

entire program, skill commission need to develop

strong database and attractive remuneration to retain

and nurture the important resource of the program.

Trainers may include

 Seniors in the profession

 Engineers and Diploma Holders

 Industry workers

 Farmers

 Professional trainers

To make best use of trainer resource, they may be

provided options and freedom to participate in the

program as a full time or part time trainer.

5.3 Governance Interventions

As discussed earlier, India has multiple and

overlapping agencies to train on skill needs. This

resulting into poor coordination and low visibility

among the participants. Hence developing a single

platform is necessary either by using single

technological tool or by merging multiple agencies

into single agency to take up the skill training needs.

The agency is also required look into basic needs and

motivational activities to attract and execute the

training program. Agency can pick up suitable reward

and recognition while training the participants. The

governance flow and coordination is illustrated in

Figure 2.

5.4 Technological Interventions

The technological interventions strategy is presented

in Figure 3, would be helpful in solving the key

operational challenges by ensuring direct

participation of employers and workers together with

government and training centres through a single

platform. The proposed software obtains skill

demands in different localities, allows registration of

training centres/trainers and maps beneficiaries to a

nearby training centre through GPS tracking. The

interventions proposed in Figure 3, include effective

technological tools for identification and validation of

skill trainers, preliminary processing and assessment

of beneficiaries and also for evaluation of overall

outcomes of the skill development program.

5.4.1 Block chain Technology

Technological interventions based on latest

technological trends like blockchain can be

introduced in the implementation of sustainable skill

development model. Blockchain is a secured database

that differs from a typical database in the way that it

stores information, blockchains store data in blocks

that are then linked together.

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Figure 3: Technological Interventions for a Sustainable Skill Development Program.

For example, block chain can help with efficient

authentication of the beneficiaries by the previous

beneficiaries who have got authenticated before in the

process. Each additional block strengthens the

verification of the previous block and hence the entire

blockchain. Blockchain networks can eliminate the

administrative burden, reduce the cost of operations

while providing better security and control over the

entire system of database.

5.4.2 Trainers Selection

The proposed technological interventions will have a

dedicated software module for skill trainers. The

module will create a robust database system to

include a large number of diversified and experienced

trainers who are readily available for training the

beneficiaries in different sectors. The trainers can be

directly register with their detailed profile, expertise

(to train in a specific job role/sector) and their

availability details in the system. The software will

review the profile of trainers with standard evaluating

parameters and provide ratings to the successful

trainers in different sectors. The proposed model

continuously interacts with trainers through advanced

technological communication tools and maintains

relationships with all the trainers. The trainers can

access the work available for them in the proposed

software and can start the work independently or by

associating with training partners/training centres.

5.4.3 Beneficiaries Interest Mapping:

Attracting and identifying the beneficiaries is most

crucial for the success of the programme. In our

technological interventions, we propose a simple and

convenient software tool for beneficiaries. The tool

may have the following features:

• The beneficiary can register with the program

by way of using a smart phone application or by

giving a miss-call to a specific phone number.

Beneficiaries can also register by sending a message

to the given phone number.

• The tool will collect the information of

interested beneficiaries then the back end team will

follow up with the beneficiary.

• The software tool will have a set of activities

to assess the beneficiaries interests and strengths to

train the candidate in a suitable area.

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423

• Candidates will be evaluated continuously in

their area of training and a learning grade will be

decided at the end of the program.

A database of potential beneficiaries with their

profile and GPS location will be made available in

this software tool for allocation of trainers.

5.4.4 Motivation of Beneficiaries:

An extrinsic motivation drives a person to act under

the effect of an external factor: this may be an

economic incentive, but it is the motivation that

actually allows learning to happen. Motivation is

what turns an interest in a subject and a desire to get

ahead into actual action. In the technological

interventions proposed, we are proposing a software

module for continuous motivation of beneficiaries

who undertake training through a training centre or

trainer.

This module shall include moral motivational

video shorts (of previous beneficiaries) and rewards

and recognition apart from ensuring that their basic

needs such as healthy food and necessities are

available to them freely. Rewards and recognition

may be provided for prompt responses during the

training activity to make the learning more

interesting and sustainable. Beneficiaries may also

be motivated in a specific job role with the help of

simulators. For example, an excavator operator

initially can be trained in the simulator before he gets

into the real training on the vehicle.

5.4.5 Program Outcome Evaluations

In the existing skill development model, the

evaluation process shows only consolidated data and

does not provide any information about outcomes in

each sector. To encourage participation of

stakeholders, the outcomes need to be analysed

systematically and on a frequent basis. The

technological interventions we propose here shall

include a systematic outcome evaluation software

module with the following features:

• Assessing all beneficiaries on individual

interests/strengths.

• Assessing all beneficiaries on trained domain.

• Evaluating the beneficiaries on placement

activity.

• Analyzing the beneficiaries on self-

employment opportunities.

The software module will evaluate the overall

success rate of the skill training programs based on

the data of number and percentage of trained

beneficiaries employed/self-employed in different

sectors. The income levels of trained beneficiaries

will also be considered in the program outcome

analysis.

6 SUMMARIES

In India, government plays the dual role of policy

maker and regulator. There are various

implementation models. Skill training is largely

government-driven program, while constant efforts

are made to increase private sector participation. In

the existing model the skill training providers are

functioning separately without proper coordination

and evaluation of the outcomes of the program. Due

to these ineffective models, the skill training program

is lagging behind in achieving the desired objectives.

The agency is required to address all the challenges

including social perception and awareness. The

agency is also required to look into operational,

infrastructural and coordination challenges for

successful and sustainable skill training program.

After a thorough research of the existing model and

by comparing with other successful business/

sustainability models, we recommend developing an

integrated software and technological tools as a one

stop solution for skill needs of the country.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The conceptual article has not obtained any funds

from any agencies. However, the authors would like

to thank the affiliating organizations for their

motivation and support in this research work.

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