2. SKILL UPGRADATION & VOCATIONAL TRAINING

From End Of Poverty

India is largely an agricultural country and as a result most of young people live in villages. Rapid urbanization is leading to migration of youth to urban centres and the rural youth who migrate to cities in search of education and employment are sometimes unable to cope up the alien situation leading to psychological disparity and risky behaviour. As India grows in leaps and bounds, rural India still struggles with basic issues such as lack of employment, education and health care. There is a pressing need to bridge this divide in order to enable a more harmonious social and economic structure. A step in this direction is to connect youth to rural India thereby creating awareness about the development challenges that India faces.

Employment scenario:

India has seen high economic growth rate for over a decade now and with globalization, economy has opened huge avenues for employment. Indian Youth today is keen to pursue education which makes them capable of taking advantage of these opportunities, but a large section of youth belonging to the underprivileged strata of society are constrained in doing so primarily because of their socio- economic conditions. Youth having studied up to High School / Higher secondary level find themselves without skills connecting to employment as required in job market. Thus resulting in widespread unemployment among the youth; becoming unrest leading to social stress and turmoil in the society upsetting nation’s development. Skill constraints:

In the last few years, the service sector has led the Indian economic growth from the forefront and sectors like Retail Marketing are in boom creating huge employment. But Retail, IT, BPO, Banking Sector etc are facing huge mismatch between their need of skill requirement (market demand) and educational and vocational skills possessed by the prospective job seekers (market supply) especially at the bottom of the delivery chain. The situation is not just alarming but also becoming acute and the need of the hour is quality secondary education and good technical skills among prospective employees, especially among the underprivileged.

A study conducted by Youth Workforce Development Assessment in selected areas of India (NCR region included) in December 2005 reveals that all employers contacted by ANE Bureau Assessment Team suggested that they were constrained by an inadequately prepared labour force. Service sector employers have been univocal in commenting that they could not find enough candidates with usable English knowledge (command), adequate computer skills and good communication skills.

ASSIST thrust is on providing access for youth to education, employment, health and other services to afford them better living conditions. On the other words, efforts to be made to provide youth with ample opportunities to develop their skills, capabilities, personality and become good citizens of the country.

Important features:

Promotion of employment opportunities for youth depends on the available job opportunities or sources, availability of basic skill, job demands and required knowledge. Identification of opportunities and the resources is very significant in promotion of employment opportunity and achieving economic growth. Therefore, for identifying and recommending activities it is important to map the opportunities and skills available, their existing level and interventions required for up-gradation and matching the employment potentiality with the demand pattern in the various industries or sectors. As technical / vocational / traditional skill plays a primary and critical role for promoting employment opportunities, identification of existing skills, their level of practices and support needed for growth is required for preparing the employment intervention and plan for economic empowerment of the target youth.

The village has only fishing and agriculture as the occupation sources. Hence, the youth having no alternate employment opportunities are forced to continue the same occupation pattern such as their parents. Even after completing the schooling and even college education these youth are forced to join the existing occupation.

In order to meet the requisites of these youth especially adolescents, the only alternative felt by ASSIST is to provide them vocational training in particular skill or trade depending on the aptitude of the respective adolescents. Group of adolescents (both male and female) in the age group of 14 above are to be trained yearly in various trades. Some of the trades, for instance, are as follows:

• Carpentry
• Masonry
• Cement fabrications
• Radio and television mechanism
• Plastic moulding
• Electrical wiring
• Leather works

This training will provide not only skill training for the adolescents but also non-formal education for the adolescents to improve their academic level. These adolescents will also be given training in marketing after they have attained successful training in a particular skill. These adolescents are expected to be trained in a year for about six to nine months based on the variety of skill and all the trained adolescents will be assisted to establish either individual or group work unit to enhance the economic status of their families.