However, the mission has failed that had promised to train 40 crore people by 2022, in real sense of the term ‘skill’. Certificates of skills were distributed in crores, but only a fraction of them could get jobs, either on account of non-availability of jobs or the skill provided failed to make our youth employable.

Now, the Centre is talking about providing Vocational Training to students right from their school days under the National Education Policy 2020. It only shows that Modi government has clearly failed to learn lessons from the failure of skill India mission and job creation. Rhetoric by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi is still heard claiming creation of jobs and skilling our youth.

India has the demographic advantage of the youngest workforce (average age of 28.7 years) in the world and it is said that it could potentially be the Human Resource Capital of the world by appropriately skilling its youth and converting this advantage into dividend, that is touted as “demographic dividend”. PM Narendra Modi had even sold the dream of making India “Skill Capital of the World”. However, India is failing in reaping the demographic dividend, since the training institutions are yet to be adequately equipped to suitably skill, reskill and upskill.

Since higher education in India faces challenges of access, equity, inadequate infrastructure, and low employability with reports stating only 10-15 per cent of its graduates have employable skills, it was all the more important to enhance the skills of available workforce, that could have been done through proper planning and implementation of quality vocational education and training, in which India has miserably failed, and with the present sate of affairs, India is bound to fail in deriving benefit from the “demographic dividend.”

Inception of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) in 2015, and several flagship programmes to transform the skill development landscape, could not do much in the last nine years. Now, the Niti Aayog has come out with a study titled “Transforming Industrial Training Institutes: Skill Development and Employment Vertical” purportedly to improve the skill development landscape of the country.

Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) were established in the country to ensure a steady flow of skilled personnel to the industry. However, it could not be done, since we have been providing large number of irrelevant trainings that were not required by the Industries. Industries always complained that they are not getting skilled persons, while trained people were complaining that they are not getting jobs. There was mismatch between the job requirement and skill.

With the advent of Industry 4.0, we are living through a fundamental transformation in the way we work, but the curriculum and the infrastructure of ITIs are not keeping pace with it. ITIs needed revamp, but Modi government did not go far beyond rhetoric.

It resulted into utter failure of transforming ITIs in the last nine years, though PM Modi has been talking big. The NITY Aayog study has admitted that “the transformation of it is remains incomplete in view of three facts: it is remain underutilized; the quality of training, faculty, and infrastructure is in general not of global standards; and most of the trainees are neither employable nor skilled enough to start their enterprise.”

PM Modi had promised two crore new jobs every year but could not deliver. It has resulted in general joblessness. And when there are no jobs in the market, possessing skill becomes irrelevant. Perhaps due to these reasons, our youth are not coming forward to join a training course. We have nearly 15,000 it is having capacity to train 25 lakh students, but only 10.5 lakh seats are filled. Placement rates portray an even more dismal picture. The quality of it is and social acceptance of it is remain low, NITI Aayog has admitted.

Around 78.4 per cent of all it is are owned and operated by private entities, while the remaining 21.59 per cent are government institutions. However, utilization of seats is only 48.2 per cent. Approximately 62 per cent of all seats are in private ITIs while only 38 per cent seats are in government ITIs.

Statewise distribution of ITIs are also inequitable. Around 66 per cent of the it is are situated in 5 states – Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra. Most of the states are almost ignored.

A total of 133 trades are offered, but only half a dozen trades are popular, such as electrician, fitter, machinist, welder, motor vehicle mechanic, and draughtsman. There are only a few takers of other trades.

One of the reasons of failure in providing proper training is the non-availability of skilled trainers. There is chronic shortage of instructors and only 36 per cent of the sanctioned posts are filled. There is also a conceptual error in understanding the terms ‘skill’ and ‘knowledge’. Knowledge can be provided in educational institutions while skill could be developed on the job. India has an apprenticeship act to provide skill on the job, but there are large scale violations of its provisions, and the government does not act against the defaulter industry. Moreover, the ratio of apprentices being given jobs is very dismal, only about 20-60 per cent if they were trained in middle and low-graded ITIs. Only a handful of High-graded ITIs placement rates are more than 80 per cent. Most of the students do not get proper industry exposer to have employable skill.

As for skilling women is concerned, active women ITIs are only 16.83 per cent of total ITIs in India. In 2021, only 6.6 per cent of female candidates took admission. Only 15.83 per cent of total instructors were females. All these indicates poor gender diversities in skilling women.