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Special Report

manufacturing, banking and finance,
mechatronics, public health, hospital-
ity management, production tool and
dies manufacturing, and agriculture
among other skills.
“ THERE’S DEFINITELY BEEN

a much higher 20-25 percent
rush for admission into our
programmes this year, espe-
cially from youth in tier-II and tier-
III towns. And the rush is not only for
upskilling in the IT, engineering and
white collar industries. Even self-em-
ployed people engaged in vocations
such as civic plumbing, carpentry,
electrical wiring, are signing up for
top-up courses. They have realised
that their productivity and incomes SVSU's Nehru (centre): national productivity boost
can rise manifold if they learn to use
modern power tools and equipment. Sabharwal, founding-chairman
Therefore, we accord high importance and president of Teamlease Pvt. Ltd
to recognition of prior learning of (estb.2000), the country’s premier
truck drivers, healthcare profession- white and blue-collar personnel staff-
als and medical lab technologists who ing company and of Teamlease Skills
have already learned through infor- University, Vadodara (2013). The
mal mentorship. Short-term top-up company provides skilled technicians
formal education in a wide range of including accountants, data entry/
services is certain to give a huge boost back office, BPO/customer care, front
to national productivity and income, office/receptionists, hospitality man-
and enable us to catch up with China agers, chefs, drivers etc to business
and developed countries by 2047,” enterprises while the university trains
says Dr. Raj Nehru, founding Vice and certifies them. Since incorpora-
Chancellor of SVSU. tion, the company has placed 2 million
This solution of mass-skilling In- personnel in industry and services and
dia’s youth to experience a produc- the university has certified 400,000
tivity leap is shared by Dr. Balkis- Sharma: redundancy fear personnel.
han Sharma, a commerce alum of According to Sabharwal, there
Mumbai University, IIM-Ahmedabad “There is a revolution in educa- is a “repair, prepare and upgrade”
and Shri JJT University, Rajasthan, tion. Students are no longer content mindset sweeping across the country.
promoter-director of the World Acad- with the traditional three-four year “Traditional unskilled jobs are dead.
emy of Career Programmes, autho- degrees. They are anxious to switch A new world of work has emerged in
rized to offer the IB Career-Related to the American-style major and mi- which everyone has to learn (addition-
Programme (Plus Two) of the Inter- nors system, and also acquire diploma ally) while they learn, learn while they
national Baccalaureate in India, Nest qualifications to become multi-skilled. earn and keep learning lifelong. As
Academy and Future Varsity, degrees- They are becoming well aware that industry world-over is adopting new
awarding skills academies. According multi-skilled graduates will have an AI, machine learning and robotics
to Sharma, there’s “a huge surge in edge in the employment marketplace technologies, there is rising demand
demand” for admission into these in- Simultaneously, there is a rise in top- for bite-size certification courses as
stitutions which offer school-leavers up executive education programmes,” employers are switching from provid-
and working professionals value- says Sharma. ing lifetime to taxi-cab employment.
added subjects such as digital market- This viewpoint that there is a fe- Unsurprisingly, there is also a surge
ing, data analytics, events and sports verish upskilling sentiment running of demand for shopfloor technicians
management, integrative health and through the population is endorsed for vocational training and service sec-
dietetics management. by the weighty opinion of Manish tor jobs in Teamlease University and

58 EDUCATIONWORLD JULY 2023