TeaToday is World Youth Skills Day. Eight years ago, on this day, India launched the National Skill Development Mission to provide its youth with adequate training in market-relevant skills. Now, as it becomes the world’s most populous country and undertakes ambitious decarbonisation efforts, we need to scale up our skill development initiatives to prepare for the green jobs of the future. According to an analysis by the Energy, Environment and Water Council, India will potentially build 3.4 million jobs in emerging areas of solar and wind energy by 2030, 1.2 million into electric vehicle transition by 2030, and another 1.8 million in servicing industry for sustainable cooling solutions by 2037. Similar high employment potential exists in other emerging green areas of biofuels, the circular economy of waste and nature-based solutions.
To meet the growing demand for skilled workforce, the government has made significant efforts to launch a series of skill development initiatives. these range from Suryamitra program for solar power projects, air friend program for wind power projects, and the National Green Skill Development Program for various initiatives related to forest and environment management. However, these initiatives – and other similar initiatives designed for new and emerging green economic sectors – will need to address the challenges of low placement outcomes, high dropout rates and limited participation of women. We propose three essential foundational aspects for designing these skill development initiatives.
Prioritize demand-driven skills
Improve placement outcomes by introducing demand-driven skill development programmes. There is a need to engage with industry as the primary demand driver for job creation. Employers are best suited to project their demand and meet emerging skill requirements. It is important to involve an industry partner early in the training program, prioritizing the recruit-train-deployment model, as in the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana. The industry partner can either train the trainees directly or leverage an existing training center before deploying them upon completion of their course and certification. This will improve the employability outcomes of the training centers and reduce the curricular gap in their courses. Further, integrating different employment portals run under National Skill Development Mission, Atmanirbhar Bharat and various other schemes into one consolidated directory, providing information to both job seekers and job creators, can bridge the information gap. can enhance the labor market pool and strengthen their monitoring and evaluation.
support the unemployed
Provide continuous support to unemployed trainees. Presently all training centers Post-placement tracking is expected to be undertaken to monitor the career progress, retention and other parameters of the interns recruited. Future initiatives should extend similar support to unemployed trainees. This support includes providing ongoing Post-training counseling through new job postings, offering job referrals and information on encouraging participation employment fairs (Job fair) A notable example is the Surya Mitra app, which seeks to continuously engage trained technicians under the scheme to connect them with customers around them using GPS technology for assistance related to servicing, maintenance and installation of solar-powered systems. Provides convenience.
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women centric programs are leading
Incorporate a gender-inclusive approach to meet the skilling needs of women. Women’s participation in existing skills and training programs is low and largely confined to the conservative sectors of apparel, beauty, wellness and care. This contributes to the low level of female participation in the labor market. as of 2018 global survey According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), women occupy 32 percent of jobs in renewable energy, with an even lower presence in STEM jobs (at 28 percent). Future programs should be made women-inclusive and have clear monitoring metrics to measure their participation rates. Women-centered programmatic design includes hybrid skills support, self-paced completion programs, gender-responsive infrastructure, and entrepreneurial skills across sales and marketing. Finally, linking these measures with gender-based performance indicators for training centers could further encourage women’s participation in emerging and green value chains.
India is currently living through a demographic dividend, and its decarbonisation journey will unfold in parallel with a growing labor force. By investing in industry-linked and outcome-based skilling programs with gender-inclusive design principles, we can empower our youth to tap the vast employment potential of India’s emerging green economy.
Tarun Mehta is a research analyst, and Gunjan Jhunjhunwala is a program chief at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), an independent, non-profit research organization. they tweet @Taarun_Mehta And @gunjanj3respectively.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)