World Youth Skill Day

• 16 Jul 2021

Why in News

Every year, 15^th July is observed as the World Youth Skills Day.

• It was designated by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 2014.

Key Points

• About:
  
  • Aim:
    
    • To equip young people around the world with essential skills for employment, work, and entrepreneurship.
    • To achieve the Incheon Declaration: Education 2030, “which devotes considerable attention to technical and vocational skills development, specifically regarding access to affordable quality technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions.’’
      
      • This vision is fully captured by Sustainable Development Goal-4, which aims to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.
    • To eliminate gender disparity.
  • Theme for 2021:
    
    • ‘Reimagining Youth Skills Post-Pandemic’.
• State of Youth Employment and Schools during Covid-19:
  
  • According to the estimates of UNESCO, schools were shut down for over 30 weeks in 50% of the countries between March 2020 and May 2021.
  • Respondents to a survey of the TVET, which was jointly collected by UNESCO, the ILO and the World Bank, revealed that distance learning was the most common way of imparting skills.
  • Youth employment fell 8.7% last year, compared with 3.7% for adults.
• Announcement by India:
  
  • The Prime Minister announced the 75 newly sanctioned Jan Shikshan Sansthans ((JJSs) and also launched a portal made specifically for JSS.
    
    • JSSs aim to provide vocational training to non-literates, neo-literates as well as school dropouts in rural areas, by identifying skills that might be relevant to the market of that region.
  • Curriculum was launched of 57 new courses aligned with industry demand.

Steps taken by India for Skilling Youth

• Industrial Training Centres (ITIs): Conceptualized in the year 1950, aims to expand and modernize the existing Long-Term Training ecosystem in India.
• Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY): Launched in 2015, it aims to provide free skill training avenues to youths of India.
  • Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana 3.0: It is launched 2021 in a bid to empower India’s youth with employable skills by making over 300 skill courses available to them.
• Recognition of Prior Learning: It was launched in 2015 to recognize the prior skills acquired by individuals. It is one of the key components of PMKVY.
  • Under this an individual with a certain set of skills or with prior learning experience is assessed and certified under RPL with grade according to the National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF).
• National Career Service Project: Launched in 2015 to offer free online career skills training through its National Career Service (NCS) project for job-seekers registered with it.
• Skill Management and Accreditation of Training Centres (SMART): It provides a single window IT application that focuses on the accreditation, grading, Affiliation and Continuous monitoring of the Training Centres (TC) in the skill ecosystem.
• Skills Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood (SANKALP): Its focus is on district-level skilling ecosystem through convergence and coordination. It is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme which is collaborated with the World Bank.
• Skills Strengthening for Industrial Value Enhancement: STRIVE scheme is a World Bank assisted-Government of India project with the objective of improving the relevance and efficiency of skills training provided through ITIs and apprenticeships.
• Pradhan Mantri YUVA Yojana (Yuva Udyamita Vikas Abhiyan): Launched in the year 2016, it aims at creating an enabling ecosystem for Entrepreneurship development through Entrepreneurship education and training; Advocacy and easy access to entrepreneurship support network and Promoting social enterprises for inclusive growth.
• Young, Upcoming and Versatile Authors’ (YUVA) scheme, a mentorship programme to train young authors.
• Kaushalacharya Awards: Launched to recognize the contribution made by skill trainers and to motivate more trainers to join the Skill India Mission.
• Scheme for Higher Education Youth in Apprenticeship and Skills (SHREYAS): The scheme is to provide industry apprenticeship opportunities to the general graduates exiting in April 2019 through the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS).
• Atmanirbhar Skilled Employee Employer Mapping (ASEEM): Launched in 2020, it is a portal to help skilled people find sustainable livelihood opportunities.

Special Initiatives for Tribal Community

• 'Going Online As Leaders' -GOAL are helping tribal population with areas like art and culture, handicraft, textiles and digital literacy among tribal areas leading to entrepreneurship development among the tribal population.
• Similarly, Van Dhan Yojna is effectively connecting the tribal society with new opportunities.

Source: PIB