School to Workforce Transition – Significance and Way forward

Advanced technologies or Future Skills are constantly reshaping the world and technology ecosystem in particular. In consequence, the new labour market is experiencing a radical transformation and a break from the past and traditional job markets. This highly competitive market demands upskilled talent.

Second Edition of this newsletter aims to emphasize the significance, challenges, and solutions for making the school-to-workforce transition easy for adolescents and youth

Future Skills vis-a-vis School to Workforce transition imperative

During last 2 years of pandemic, almost all means of doing business and work has seen transformation, going virtual or massive use of technology. The technology disruption in all sectors, including education and the economy, has impacted people’s lives across the globe. The internet has become a necessity, with which every business and institution is operating today. Trends indicate that a ‘highly-skilled’ workforce is required to perform any work efficiently in the not-too-distant future.?

WEF Stresses Skilling Young Students: Since the prevailing business dynamics are constantly evolving, even the World Economic Forum (WEF) also bats for skilling students (or adolescents) through a mix if pedantic + pedagogical approach which fosters the vocationalisation of education, esp. in the age of advanced technologies. The WEF suggests that industry experts, governments and civil society must come together and create a robust learning system that protects the interest of newly- graduated school and college students.?

Skilling Adolescents: Educate 2 Employ or School 2 Workforce: The Key to Filling Skill Gaps in the Highly Demanding Job Market

According to the SAP Report "by 2030, companies and communities throughout the world need to be ready to sustainably integrate 2 billion young people seeking employment into the workforce."

To meet this challenge, adolescents should be qualified enough to fit successfully into the rapidly emerging employment opportunities and highly demanding job market. The only option here is to raise the younger generation, especially those in the 14-18 years group, to a workforce-ready status, so that they enter the 21st century’s workforce fully equipped.

Here comes initiatives like Code Unnati and Tech Saksham, which are helping young Indian citizens to acquire the expertise needed to join the 21st century workforce.

CSR Initiatives & Meaningful Partnerships

It is imperative that private sector collaboratively define and design the workforce readiness initiatives. Such initiatives can focus on meeting the requirements of specific ecosystem. For e.g. TechSaksham programme, driven jointly by SAP and Microsoft, aims to democratize and universalize the future skills & technology education, prepare the adolescents towards workforce ready and most importantly help them in deciding the right career pathways to choose. Such partnerships have the power to provide scalable educational / skilling programme, thereby augmenting talent pool for technology industry. Further such initiative can propel the diverse workforce viz., women, into adopting meaningful career pathways. To put this in perspective, TechSaksham programme trains young adolescent women in cloud computing, artificial intelligence and prepare them for career in IT ecosystem.

Gearing up adolescent citizens for 21st Century Challenges

In a country like India, with youngest population, where the skill gaps and skill mismatch remain as major challenges, tools like the Code Unnati app are critical in assisting young Indians in deciding their careers. The app consists of over 200 industry 4.0 courses and equips students to gear up for 21st century challenges. From the courses available, students can choose any of them that matches their skill set.

Further, overarchingly we lay significant focus on employable 21st Century Skills for the adolescents. It is crucial that we extend this pedagogy of 21st Century Skills to the students at the last mile. This can be achieved by training the capacity of teachers as well as by fostering social infrastructure which can facilitate such training

Government-Private Partnership in Skilling Young Indians

For vast demography India, one of the most difficult tasks is to streamline and utilize the existing resources. The Indian government has demonstrated its interest in investing in digitally-enabled infrastructure. The key is in utilizing them fully may be challenging. Private sector can play a crucial role in scaling resources by partnering with the government to make India digitally competitive. SAP’s partnerships with the Government of Karnataka and UNDP India are appropriate examples of such initiatives. The Code Unnati programme in rural Karnataka — Dakshina Kannada, Raichur, and Bengaluru Rural — will directly impact the lives of over 20,000 young people. One of the core agendas of this programme is to empower the state’s youth with skills training, career assistance and an entrepreneurial ecosystem. The programme aids in a smooth transition from education to work.

Leveraging Government of India's Policy Framework

NEP and School to Workforce Emphasis: The recently adopted New Education Policy (NEP 2020) in India stresses on vocational studies, professional education, technology use and digital education. Every day, newly graduated students from schools and colleges face unique challenges in the workplace. To face such challenges efficiently, multidisciplinary and holistic education is a powerful tool. Such an approach, if adopted by the Indian education system, will prove critical for young students.

With no hard separation between science and art, academic and vocational, and curricular and co-curricular activities, NEP strives to end the unspoken, but visible hierarchy in various learning aspects. The Code Unnati programme not only emphasizes Science, Technology Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education, but also trains students in life skills so that they can make informed decisions and smart career choices. The fundamentals of the programme are clearly in sync with the NEP.

The time is opportune for private sector, government, non-profits and academia to foster consequential framework which enables adolescents access and opportunity, and facilitate enabling transition from education to employment and then to building meaningful career path