India,
15th July 2020 - The aim of the World Youth Skills Day is to
recognize the strategic importance of equipping young people with skills for
employment, decent work and entrepreneurship, and to highlight the crucial role
of skilled youth in addressing the current and future employment and underemployment
challenges across the globe.
The theme of World Youth Skills 2020i.e. ‘Skills
for a Resilient Youth’ is set against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. The
resultant challenges are plenty with a rise in unemployment, digital becoming
the new normal and adapting tonew-age learning based on relentless advances in technology like mobile
technologies, AI, Machine Learning, green energy, drone technology etc.,
becoming a must.
According to reports, India is likely
to have the world's largest workforce by 2027. Hence, it is important to integratea skilling program into the curriculum right
from the school stage to address the looming fracture in the skills supply
chain arising due to the marked disconnect between the academia outputand the industry requirements.This will enable India to meet the aspirations
of the youth by preparing them to enter the future workforce.
Soft Skills or employability skills is
the buzz in the global skills domain today. The reason is simple. While hard or
technical skills can be acquired and taught, soft skills have more to do with
character, relationships and personality.Therefore, employers see soft skills
as key tointerpersonal relations, fostering
employee retention, improving leadership, and building a meaningful culturewithin the organization.
Wadhwani Foundation is focused on
empowering the youth with 21st century employability skills to
enable them to command family supporting wages through on-demand, AI-enabled
accessto high-quality skilling. The Foundation is also focused on integrating
skilling with shop-floor training for vocational careers and enables employers,
vocational trainers, and academic Institutes to adoptemployability programs for
superior outcomes.
On the occasion of World Youth Skills
Day, says Dr Ajay Kela, President and CEO, Wadhwani Foundation, “With half of India’s population
of 1.3 billion under the age of 26, and ~12 million youth turning 18 every
year, India is experiencing a massive demographic dividend that will last until
2055. This could make India a global HR powerhouse provided we fill the gap
between the skills Industry desires and what academia is producing. In the
COVID-19 times, digital has become the new normal, and video and mobile will
play a key role in providing cheap, reliable, scalable, and effective learning
solutions to solving the skilling problems. Wadhwani Opportunity, an initiative
of the Foundation, has developed multi-media enabled technology solutions while
integrating online/in-class 21st-century employability skills and self-learning
pedagogy that can reach thousands of students simultaneously through our cloud
platform. The theme of World Youth Skills Day 2020 is – Skills for a Resilient
Youth – and I have full confidence in the resilience and perseverance of the
Indian Youth who will tide over the COVID-led crisis with grit and
determination. My message to the youth is that the current pandemic-led crisis
provides an unprecedented opportunity through the new normal of digital
learning and exploiting the emerging skilling avenues.”
About
Wadhwani Foundation
Wadhwani Foundation was
founded in 2000 by DrRomesh Wadhwani, with the primary mission of accelerating job
creation in India and other emerging economies through large-scale initiatives
in entrepreneurship, small business growth, innovation, and skilling. The
Wadhwani Foundation operates in 20 countries, including India, South East Asia
(Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines), East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda), Southern
Africa (South Africa, Botswana, Namibia), West Africa (Nigeria, Ghana), Egypt,
and Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile). The Wadhwani Foundation works in partnership with
governments, foundations, corporations, and educational institutes. For more details
on Wadhwani Foundation, please visit https://www.wfglobal.org/
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