Events

World Youth Skills Day – When and Why?

Did you know that July 15 is World Youth Skills Day (WYSD)? In November 2014, the United Nations decided to celebrate it every year to raise awareness about the importance of youth skills development. It also highlights the issue of current rising unemployment among youth. The steps need to be taken to control this situation globally is also worked upon.

Quality Education is the part of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals given by UN. These goals are a call for action by all countries to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. The agenda is to meet the target by 2030.

 

One of the targets for Quality Education (Goal 4) is:

By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship.

Thus, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is essential to develop skills in the youth so that they can have a sustainable future.

 

What is happening in India?

In India, the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) has implemented many policies to promote technical and vocational education for skill enhancement. Skill India Mission is one of them. It enables Indian youth to take up industry-relevant skills training. This improves their chances of getting employment.

 

Why can’t Educated Youth find jobs in India?

So, now that we are done telling you what exactly is World Youth Skills Day and why are we celebrating it, let’s come to a serious issue we have in our hand – Unemployment among educated youth.

Our current education system is struggling with what actually counts as knowledge. The unemployment of graduates and postgraduates are increasing day by day.

 

One of the reasons for this disparity is that awareness about the importance of education has increased in the past couple of decades. Whereas the number of decent stable jobs have not increased at the same pace to accommodate everyone. A lot of children whose families were traditionally in agriculture or labour have got a formal education. But, they still can not find jobs. Thus, “Jobless growth” is another term for India’s growth. 

Another reason is that employers do not find people who are skilled enough to do the required work. Our skilled, uneducated workforce has been gradually replaced by an unskilled, educated workforce.

 

Skill and School

We need to change the fact that skilled and schooled are two different things in our current society. To have skilled youth, we need to incorporate skill training in our education system.

Most of us have encountered that the things we learn in school/college are far away from what we start doing once we start working in the industry. The school curriculum is too theoretical and out-dated. Thus, technical and vocational, on-job training is a must to overcome this problem.

 

What can you do?

 

We, at Patna Diaries, hope that you start working on some skill development, attend workshops and try to get enrolled in an internship program at the organisation of your interest. 

You can also go through the Skills Development Package “Learning and Working” from the UNEVOC website.

Also, if you want to celebrate World Youth Skills Day, then you can enter the #SkillsinAction Photo Competition organised by UNESCO-UNEVOC next year.