President Pranab Mukherjee Opens India Skills Competition

As the education quality in India is perhaps the worst in the world, most Indians are not employable in the contemporary job market. ~ Rakesh Raman

The President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, inaugurated the India Skills Competition -‘India Skills-2016’ on Friday in New Delhi on the occasion of the World Youth Skills Day.

He also launched an International Skill Centre, a PMKVY 2.0, a Labour Market Information System and Skills Online.

Addressing the gathering, the President congratulated the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) for their achievements in a short span of time.

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He said the Ministry was extremely important for the socio-economic development of our country, adding that India is a young nation with 62% of its population in the working age group and more than 54% of the total population below 25 years of age.

Today, the Indian government boasts that India is a nation of the young people. But the government does not realize that in the absence of right education, these young people are like time bombs. ~ Rakesh Raman

As a consequence, around 15 million youth enter the workforce each year. Young minds are our assets. This is our demographic dividend which we need to harness.

As policy makers, we have a duty to empower our youth by providing skills to them. However, he cautioned that if we cannot provide jobs to the huge number of people entering the job market every year, the population dividend could turn into a population liability. This explosive situation has to be prevented.

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The President mentioned that recently skill development of 1500 employees of Rashtrapati Bhavan was undertaken by the MSDE. He stated that unemployment is a serious challenge for India.

Others present on the occasion were Venkaiah Naidu, Union Minister of Urban Development; Smriti Irani, Union Minister of Textiles; Prakash Javedekar, Union Minister of Human Resource Development; Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Development of North Eastern Region (I/C); and Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Minister of State for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (I/C).

Photo courtesy: Press Information Bureau