The implementation of the Skill India policy has not sufficiently anchored the reality of India’s political economy, reveals a recent study by researchers from two Bengaluru institutes — the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) and the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC).
According to the researchers, skill training is pushing “needy young people” into precarious, informalised and low-paying jobs that are unlikely to lead to a better economic future or social mobility, or equip them with the means to improve their own lives.
The study titled, ‘India’s Changing Cityscapes: Work, Migration and Livelihoods’, was funded by the Indian Council of Social Science Research. “The preponderance of informal service work — even in the organised sector — makes the future of the skilled service worker almost as bleak as that of the unskilled worker,” said Supriya RoyChowdhury from ISEC who did the study along with Carol Upadhya from NIAS.
“While greater attention to the relevance of skills to local job markets will certainly make skill training more useful for workers, there is also a need for more focussed and critical attention to what kind of jobs are available and to the institutional framework of urban service work,” she said.