INTEGRATING SKILL DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATION

Abstract

Though increasing employment opportunities are available, yet organisations are facing a shortage of skilled and competent manpower because the pool of ‘qualified’ candidates which is available is not ‘skilled’ enough to meet the requirements of industry. Today’s job market and in-demand skills are hugely different from the ones of 10 or even 5 years ago and the pace of change is only set to accelerate. It is estimated that the Indian workforce will increase to approximately 600 million in the year 2022, of which 104.62 million will need to be skilled. So building a skilling system to match the new requirements, a system that responds well to business needs, while opening opportunities for all people is the need of the hour; and this can best be achieved by integrating employability skills in the academic curriculum.