We have come a long way, robots couldn’t walk, now they can do back flips. Algorithms can now grade high school essays as good as human teachers do. It is now easy to generate an object as it is to print a document. Such changes surprise and alarm us. Consider…

Ashutosh Pratap “Nearly 100 years ago, in the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s founding documents it was underlined that labour is not a commodity.” However, things seem to have changed now. The on-demand economy provides on-demand labour. For consumers, it offers convenience and improved affordability, for the workers it offers flexibility…

Exam paper leaks, job seekers protesting, strikes for job reservations, etc. these are the kind of news one reads everyday. A rote education system and our shortsighted responses have not addressed the fundamentals of the jobs problem. While job creation and productive workforce development are undeniably complex issues, however, at…

On both economic and psychological grounds the educational imperative of turning everyone into a “knowledge worker,” is flawed. It is based on a misguided separation of ‘thinking from doing’ and is ultimately unfruitful for individuals and country as a whole. The merits of skilled manual labor are enormous. Think about…

A lot is known on what needs to be done for ensuring we do not miss the demographic dividend, if we do not get our house in order now, we will never be a developed country. No country has become developed by missing a demographic dividend.

Skills (Vocational education) remain un-aspirational for a basic reason; we have worked very hard for it to be so, the short sightedness of educational policymakers has ensured that it remains a secondary alternative, always inferior to conventional education. In fact, it should not surprise anyone and be taken as a…

Steady jobs, incomes,careers and a hope for life keeps vulnerable youth, particularly, from unstable areas away from rampaging on streets. Unemployment may not directly cause a riot but it does fuel it. In an extreme case, a riot may itself demand employment, agitations by Jats in recent time is a…

Skill Reforms: Underlying themes of the Sharda Prasad Committee report The committee had twin goals in providing a roadmap for skill reforms, first to meet the employer needs of skills and second, to provide a decent means of livelihood to youth. …

SKILL INDIA REFORMS The government of India recently released the Sharda Prasad Committee report on skill development reforms for public consultations. A discussion on the findings of the committee and steps for immediate course correction to salvage the demographic dividend (only 20 years left) is a welcome step. The report…