Challenges in the skill development initiatives

To leverage on the demographic transition, India will need to prepare its workforce with the necessary skills. Despite significant progress in literacy, it is clear that illiteracy continues to weaken the Indian workforce today. Increased capacity and ability of skill development programs are needed. As significant skill development takes momentum, implementing institutions (state, institutes – private and government, vocational training agencies, as well as other implementers) would encounter obstacles at each and every stage of the ‘skill development value chain.’

In other terms, it’s these types of obstacles that each skill development centres or community of centres is likely to suffer.

          Figure: Skill Development Value Chain

The significant challenges will be relevant to the dimensions mentioned below:

1. Is there a positive impact of the skill development initiatives?
2. What is the satisfaction level among the workers with respect to the initiatives?
3. Is there a demand for these skill development initiatives?
4. Would an in-house method, a franchisee system, or a combination of both work?
5. What steps must be taken to standardize content and execution through a wide number of centres?
6. How will the training be delivered?
7. What infrastructure is needed, and is it available?
8. How will one find trained trainers?
9. Is there a structure in place for impact study and policy formulation after findings gaps?

Demand & Supply Mismatch: The demand made by the industries and supply of labour-force mismatch leads to aggravate all types of skill development initiatives of the Government and its partner agencies. Considerably, the growing demand of skilled workforce can be identified to be distributed unequally across the states in the country implying that disparity exists within the country in terms of states having potential skills. This mismatch creates a challenge for the government and related initiatives to be implemented uniformly across the country.

Geographical Problem: It is another serious problem plaguing the labour market and has a more serious impact in larger economies like India as the geographical set-up or outreach of the people for skills in India are uneven and in dismal share:

• Private sector participation: The current situation in respect to the participation of the private sector is that the private sector is not involved adequately in curriculum development and policy formulation related to educational and vocational training. Mostly private sector institutes are located in urban areas therefore rural population remains lags behind. Furthermore, due to high cost of these institutes the weaker or disadvantaged sections are also unable to get proper training in development of skills. This implies that the investment of the private sector in terms of training and development is considerably based on for workforce in the urban areas. Moreover, the participation of the private sector in development of vocational training is limited considering that the workforce employed within this sector are highly skilled and the presence of workers for masonry and other building projects are least concerned with making investments for their vocational training.

Multiplicity of Institutional Framework: Over the past few decades, India has witnessed significant progress in the skill development landscape as various types of organizations have been set up both at national and at state level. Around 17 ministries,2 national-level agencies, several sector skill councils, 35 state skill development missions and several trade and industry bodies comes forward with a view to push the national skill development agenda. Given this mind-bogglingly complex institutional setup with overlapping and conflicting priorities and little co-ordination and standardization ultimately resulted in fragmented outcomes with limited impact.

Training of Trainers: Training of trainer is one of the important key of the skill development framework. And absence or inefficiency of the same would result in serious bottleneck in the implementation of skill development projects.

Need for Skill development initiatives for construction workers

In terms of skilled labour, India tends to lag behind its global peers on the road to becoming an economic powerhouse. India has a skilled workforce of approximately 4% (only four out of every 100 employees are skilled), while countries such as Germany (74%), Japan (80%), and South Korea (96%) are well above India.

Construction workers continue to be trained by traditional master craftsmen in the absence of any institutional framework for skill training. Aside from its methodological limitations, the conventional system does not make use of emerging technology and work methods, nor does it reap the benefits of research and development. Furthermore, women workers are not educated in any trade and spend their entire working lives as head load carriers or helpers.It should be noted that comprehensive serial data on the scale of the construction workforce and its skill distribution are not available. It is estimated that approximately 310 lakh people work in the construction industry, with 79 percent of them being unskilled. 210 lakh of these jobs are temporary construction workers, with the remaining being permanent construction workers. Women represent between 23 and 27 percent of the construction workforce.

The 2009 National Skill Development Policy established the institutional framework for skill development in the country at multiple levels.

As a result, the government and its participating agencies should prioritize the establishment of more efficient trainer training centers; otherwise, the discrepancy between demand and supply of trainers can hinder the overall rate of success of the skill and training system. Furthermore, educators/trainers must be selected based on academic qualifications. Their level of competence should be assessed in terms of analytical expertise, technological and pedagogical abilities, and experience with emerging workplace technologies.Thus, a skilled workforce is needed to make India more competitive internationally and to accelerate its economic development. As India moves more towards a knowledge economy, it becomes increasingly important to concentrate on skill development, and these skills must be applicable to the emerging economic situation. An effective skill development system is important for transforming its demographic dividend. As a consequence, in order to reach its ambitious skilling goal, it is important to provide systemic solutions to the problems rather than fragmented interventions.

Since the workers in the construction sector are increasing they require technical and non-technical skill development for their performance which will help in providing them knowledge and financial growth, which will ultimately increase the performance of the Construction companies and ultimately will generate good economy to the Government of India. The research will also help in understanding the problems faced by the employers as well as the benefits to employer by implementing skill development initiatives for the workers. The research will help in understanding the importance and benefits of skill development initiatives to the construction workers. The Research will be important for the Government as well as Construction Industries to take more appropriate initiatives in the skill development policy/initiatives formulation for the workers in Construction

This research will help in studying the benefits to the workers in terms of financial, performance and operational outcomes. Skill development Initiatives for the workers can be implemented as a CSR activity in the construction sector. The research will contribute to the society in terms of Quality and awareness for Skill Development to workers in construction. Skill development will increase the skilled workforce that will ultimately increase their potential which in turn shall increase the performance of the Industries by giving good Quality and Safety. Ultimately it will contribute to the economy of the country. Impact of study will help in understanding the shortfalls/ Gap of the present policies/initiatives for the workers, which will further help in taking necessary corrective actions. Skill development Initiatives for construction workers will create opportunities for Entrepreneurship in this sector. It will also increase the Job opportunities in the society.

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