Thaindian News

New Delhi, Sep 30 (IANS) Corporate India should look at skills development as a compelling business need having long-term economic and social ramifications, experts said Friday.

“There is a compelling business and a fundamental social need to promote skill development. Jobless growth can cause huge unrest as we see in some parts of the world,” said Pallavi Jha, managing director, Walchand People First at the second national conference on skill development organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Walchand People First is a human resource consulting firm.

A study by Boston Consulting Group shows that while the world is expected to encounter a shortage of 47 million working people by 2020, India will have a surplus of 56 million.

“Industry also need to perceive this as a larger social issue. Growth for business can happen only if you have talent in the company,” added Jha who is also on the panel of a CII committee on skill development.

The speakers at the conference were largely of the opinion that while there were isolated instances of industry taking initiatives to develop skills by imparting vocational education, these still did not seem to have a large impact.

“Public and private sector need to come together and complement each others efforts in developing skills,” said senior education specialist from the World Bank.

The amount of funds at the disposal of private and public companies as part of their corporate social responsibility initiatives were huge and could be easily channelised to supplement various skill development programmes run by the government.

Urging the industry to act, chairman CII-Northern Region and chief executive NIIT, Vijay Thadani said a major worry for CEOs today was the lack of skilled people.

“By and large, the industry is still not playing a responsible role. Training is a forgotten process and is the first thing to get axed out during bad times,” said Thadani.