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In a rapidly aging world, India’s demographic potential is increasingly bagging the limelight.
However, Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal highlighted the importance of skilling and educating this growing ‘young’ population to ensure that the potential for success does not become a recipe for disaster.
Community colleges
To optimise the potential in the country, Sibal said the Ministry would institute 100 community colleges in the country, of which 10 would be in collaboration with the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. These colleges would impart education as well as vocational skills to adult illiterates.
“When I think about India, I shudder to think about the challenges,” he said at the Fifth Global Skill Summit, adding that by 2030 India is likely to become the most populous country in the world.
Sibal said the country has over 400 million individuals in the age group of 0-14 and another 100 million in the 14-18 years bracket.
“If we are able to put all of them to work, our per capita economic output would be much higher than anywhere in the world,” he said at the summit organised by the Federation for Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
Non-working population
The Minister added that 60 per cent of the Indian population is ‘non-working’, of which women comprise the majority.
He also said skills development has to be in situ, and has to be taken to the people who really need it, instead of expecting them to seek it in far-off areas.
Skills development
Also, according to the E&Y-Ficci Knowledge paper on skills development in India —Learner, released at the summit, 68 per cent of the potential candidates for skilling are women, highlighting the need for greater focus on the fair sex.
Abhaya Agarwal, Partner, Ernst and Young, added that about half of the working population needs some form of skills training. However, 93 per cent of the people who need to be skilled are in the unorganised sector, making the process difficult.
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