The document discusses youth unemployment and unemployability in India. It provides statistics showing that 57% of India's youth suffer from some degree of unemployability, while only 8% are unemployed. Reasons for this include an outdated education system that does not provide students with technical and soft skills required by industry. International organizations are working with the government to improve vocational education training in India through partnerships and skills development programs to help address the country's need for skilled labor. Challenges include improving standards, increasing funding, and developing more instructors to meet targets.

2. PREVIOUS STUDIES RELATED YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
. The National Association for Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) report of 2012
reckons that 85% of graduates are unemployable in India’s high growth industries

3. A report on Youth unemployability in India
Youth unemployability appears to be a much bigger problem than unemployment itself. According to a pan-India labour report released by
Teamlease, the largest staffing company, about 57% of India's youth suffer from some degree of unemployability, while 53% of the employed
youth lack specific skill sets and only 8% of youth are unemployed.
“Most students fail to make a mark, they have a degree, but they are not employable. They lack technical and soft skills,” said Kiran Karnic,
President NASSCOM. He also adds that the curriculum is outdated in most places and equipments used were obsolete. Students have weak
foundations because of which they are not picking up new skills. Picking up new skills can develop only when the people lose faith on
conventional wisdom. This sentence may appear arbitrary in the beginning but there is a catch. The new skills can never be picked up unless we
promise to unlearn old one.
By unemployable, we refer to individuals who have to be trained by the industry in basic skills which they should have acquired through college
and university education," said by Manish Sabharwal, Chairman, TeamLease Services.
Our institutions are misaligned with demand. We need a modular framework of courses covering a mix of knowledge, skill and work-attitude
modules that fit people to high volume vocations and incentivise 'edupreneurs,'" avers Visty Banaji, Executive Director, Godrej Industries. While
problems of unemployment are not new, the rise in number of people who are unable to meet the industry's needs due to the failure of institutions
to impart career-oriented knowledge and skills-set is a pressing problem, as it can hamper India's double digit growth.
The skill deficit hurts more than the infrastructure deficit because it sabotages equality of opportunity and amplifies inequality while poor
infrastructure maintains inequality (it hits rich and poor equally),"
270 million Indians are illiterate: Report
PTI Apr 17, 2012, 11.00PM IST
NEW DELHI: About 270 million people aged 15 years and older still remain illiterate in India, despite the country making major progress in cutting
down the number of school drop-outs over the years, according to report.
According to the Opportunity for Action report by the International Youth Foundation (IYF), there are an estimated 270 million Indians aged 15 and
older who are illiterate, while young women aged 15 to 24 are twice as likely as young men their age to be illiterate. And among the working youth,
approximately one in four is illiterate, and fewer than one in five completes secondary education, said the Microsoft Corp commissioned report.
The education deficit, according to the report, is not filled by technical or vocational education and training (TVET), as only six per cent of urban
youth and three per cent of rural youth attend TVET at the secondary level.
Attendance rates for girls have declined since 1999, and currently fewer than 25 per cent of girls in India attend vocational training.
On the positive side, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have promising applications for education delivery in the country, although
such initiatives must be tailored to regional differences, and teacher training in the use of ICTs is crucial to a programme's success, it said.
On a global basis, the unemployment rate for youth is currently 12.7 per cent, or more than double the six per cent global average for unemployment
as a whole.
The report documented that nearly 75 million young people globally, 9.9 per cent of which are in South Asia, are unemployed. Less than half (44 per
cent) of them enroll in the equivalent of India's senior secondary school and even fewer graduate.

4. REASONS FOR YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT

5. KUNAL GOURAB, 27yrs
Qualification
B. Tech (Computer Science), Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, Bidar, Karnataka
CURRENT JOB
Customer support officer at Mahindra Satyam Business Services Group (formerly Mahindra Satyam
BPO)He takes home Rs 25,000 a month, which he says is enough to pay the bills. However, his friends,
who started out with him but joined IT companies, make over Rs 5 lakh a year, while he makes Rs 3.2
lakh. His original goal was not to work in a BPO firm. He would rather be in IT and networking, because
"nobody wants to retire from a BPO". When he graduated from engineering school, the IT industry was
still reeling from the global downturn. He says his education did not prepare him for the reality of
business. But he does not regret studying engineering - there is nothing else he would rather have
studied.
SHANMUGAM S., 34yrs
QUALIFICATION
MA (History), University of Madras; Postgraduate Diploma in Computer Applications
from a local computer centre
CURRENT JOB
Owner, Salon7, Chennai
He did not want to take up his family's traditional business of hair-dressing. He wanted to be a teacher,
and he loved history. After getting his MA, he taught at a higher secondary school in Chennai, and
wanted to pursue a doctorate. His Rs 4,000 salary was insufficient to support his family. He quit teaching
and joined a consumer products company which runs a salon chain. He worked there for 10 years,
earning Rs 10,000 a month. He quit in 2012 and set up his own salon with a Rs 13 lakh investment. The
bulk of his monthly revenue of Rs 1 lakh goes towards interest payments and working capital. He plans
to open more shops. He still holds hope: he wants his two children to become doctors.
Among non-agricultural wage earners, more than three-fourths had no written contract, 70 per cent were not eligible for paid leave, and
74 per cent were not covered by social security benefits. The need for training is acute: a seminal study by Boston Consulting Group,
engaged by lobby group Confederation of Indian Industry in 2006/07, which is often referred to, noted some two in five in the workforce
were illiterate and another 40 per cent were school dropouts.
Only about one-tenth had some vocation training, and a similar percentage had completed 12 years of schooling.
THE BACKWARD MENTALLITY LEADING TOWARDS UNEMPLOYMENT

6. CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS YOUTH EMPLOYMENT
UK colleges to offer vocational education in India
Joining the rush to benefit from India’s drive towards vocational professionalism, the
Association of Colleges – an affiliation of over 300 UK colleges – has opened a permanent
office in Delhi.
Organisations involved in the development of vocational skills education, such as FICCI and
CII, also expressed their support for AoC India – as did several major providers of vocational
education, including Centum Learning, the Skills Academy, and Manipal City & Guilds.
Manipal City & Guilds is itself a collaborative venture between Manipal Education, a major
Indian education provider, and City & Guilds, a leading international vocational educator
founded in the UK.
According to Anju Talwar, CEO of the Skills Academy, “The Indian skills industry will benefit
hugely from the quality and experience of UK’s FE colleges via their professional support and
solutions in various fields.”
Multi-national corporations join the fray
Educational organisations and institutions are not the only international players contributing to
vocational education in India; the FICCI and Ernst & Young report describes how several
multinational corporations have taken the creation of skilled workers into their own hands.
For example, Maruti Suzuki India has partnered with dozens of ITIs since November 2010 and
has placed hundreds of students with its company.
The hotel giant Hyatt Hotels Corporation, on the other hand, offers in-house training at its
School of Hospitality in Mumbai, India.
Vocational education in India: a tempting investment
As India progresses towards its goal of providing skills to 500 million workers, the pressure on
the vocational education system is only expected to increase.
This state of affairs has created particularly favourable conditions for international vocational
educators, whose capital and experience appeal to Indian authorities, and whose reputation may
help them dodge the stigma associated with domestic vocational education providers.
Due to a government that is determined to encourage its population to choose vocational
education, an almost limitless supply of potential students, and a rapidly growing economy,
those educators who do choose to enter the Indian market appear set to reap significant rewards.

7. Attempts to open the Indian education sector to international educators have experienced a setback in recent
months, as initiatives to allow international higher education institutions to establish branch campuses in
India have encountered political resistance.
However, this reluctance to admit international educators does not apply to all educational sectors. As India
labours to meet its aim of upskilling 500 million workers by the beginning of the next decade, the country has
turned to international organisations and institutions for help.
India’s unique dilemma
Compared to many Western nations, India faces a unique dilemma. Although the country boasts one of the
greatest labour surpluses in the world, Indian employers are particularly likely to experience difficulty meeting
their needs for employees: a recent study by ManpowerGroup found that 67% of Indian employers reported that
they struggle to find workers who meet their requirements.
The reason for this apparent contradiction lies in the fact that a large proportion of Indian workers are
unskilled. Research performed by the Indian government presented this staggering statistic:
The quality of vocational education has played a central role in the emergence of this issue.
According to a report by FICCI and Ernst & Young, vocational qualifications have a poor reputation in India
because standards vary widely across institutions, and because schools are often out of touch with the needs of the
industry, producing graduates with skills that are outdated or irrelevant.
This lack of skills among Indian workers is having an increasing impact on the economy of India as it makes the
transition from agriculture to manufacturing and service based industries. FICCI and Ernst & Young claim that
more than 75% of future job opportunities will be “skill-based
There has been a special emphasis on skill development in the Eleventh Five Year Plan with the formation of a special task force on
skill development consisting of leading intellectuals, educators and industry experts. This led to the formation of the National Skill
Development Agency. The government also introduced service tax exemption for vocational courses and took
steps to improve the flow of credit to students of vocational courses.
Yet, progress on this front has been slow at best. The National Skill Development Corporation and various other ministries have met
only 16.5% of their target for 2012-13.vi A lot more needs to be done to address this problem.

9. Challenges…
Although India has already achieved notable success in creating a skilled workforce, there are still several serious challenges that the country has
to overcome in order to achieve its goals.
Creating and formally adopting a framework of standards was an important first step; however, in a country as diverse and decentralised as India,
it may prove challenging to introduce the framework quickly.
And even if the framework is adopted smoothly, its proponents will have to struggle with common prejudices about the quality of vocational
education. FICCI and Ernst & Young warn that extensive advertising and public information campaigns may be necessary to counter the weak
reputation of domestic vocational education.
Insufficient funding may also obstruct progress: currently, India devotes a mere 1.12% of GDP to education; and the NSDC has recently had its
funding cut by Rs. 1000 crore.
The entire policy also suffers from a lack of instructors. FICCI and Ernst & Young note that the Craftsman and Apprenticeship schemes alone will
require 70,000 instructors, compared to the current output of 1,600 instructors per year.
… and opportunities
Although the National Policy for Skill Development faces challenges that cannot be overlooked, it also presents tremendous opportunities for
educational organisations and businesses. For example, teacher training providers can fill the gap left by domestic providers.
Kotak Institutional Equities, one of India’s largest equity research companies, has made the following predictions:
With statistics like these, it’s no surprise that the potential and value of this sector has attracted the attention of international players in Australia,
New Zealand and the UK.
Education New Zealand takes charge of vocational education for INZEC
In 2011, India and New Zealand agreed to form a council to coordinate cooperation in post-secondary education – the India New Zealand
Education Council (INZEC).
Skills and vocational education is one of the two key areas in which INZEC will support cooperation; the other is higher education and research.
At its inaugural meeting in October 2012, the attending representatives discussed several ways in which India and New Zealand could collaborate
to strengthen vocational education.
It was agreed that cooperation in the vocational education sector would be lead by Education New Zealand, and that a joint working group would
be established to pursue several projects, such as:
•Support for the implementation of India’s new National Vocational Qualification Framework, drawing upon New Zealand’s experience.
•A three year training programme for Indian education leaders, managers, and assessors, aiming to train 100 people in each category.
•Sharing of best practices in specific areas such as agriculture and dairy farming, food processing, and hospitality/tourism.

10. SUGGESTIONS FOR RAISING YOUTH EMPLOYMENT