In today's rapidly evolving job market, young people are facing a plethora of challenges when it comes to securing meaningful employment. With the increase in automation and technology, the demand for skilled workers is rising. However, many young people lack the necessary skills and experience to enter the workforce, leading to high levels of youth unemployment. Apprenticeships have emerged as a powerful solution to this problem, allowing young people to gain practical, on-the-job training and real-world experience. In this blog post, let's explore how apprenticeships can boost youth employability.
The Definition and Importance of Apprenticeship
An apprenticeship is a training program that combines on-the-job training with classroom learning. Typically, an agreement between an employer and an employee outlines how the employer will provide training and real-world experience in exchange for the apprentice's work. Apprenticeships have been around for centuries, but in recent years, they have gained renewed attention as an effective way to address youth unemployment.
One of the critical benefits of an apprenticeship is that it allows young people to learn from experienced professionals in their chosen fields. This hands-on experience allows them to acquire the practical skills and knowledge often lacking in traditional classroom-based education. By working alongside experienced mentors, apprentices gain valuable insight into the industry's daily operations, learn industry-specific skills, and develop soft critical skills such as teamwork, communication, and problem-solving.
Furthermore, apprenticeships provide young people with a structured path to career progression. Unlike traditional education, where students may graduate with a degree and struggle to find a job, apprenticeships provide a clear path to employment. As apprentices gain experience and skills, they are often offered opportunities for promotion or higher-paid roles within their organization.
India's Skill Competition
Despite India's higher education system annually adding 2.5 million university graduates and roughly 3.5 lakh engineers to the workforce, an estimated five million graduates are unemployed at any given moment. By 2023, India wants to have 500 million people with employable skills. As a result, apprenticeship will be a vital component of the effort to upskill India's workers and increase employability.
4.9 lakh seats are available for apprentice training each year. However, only 2.8 lakh apprentices are currently being trained. These figures are appalling for a labor force that is currently expanding by 12 million people annually and has few usable skills. The amount is even lower than in nations like Germany, which has three million apprentices, Japan, with ten million, and China, with twenty million, who learn essential job skills through practical experience. Arbitrary laws regarding the number of apprentices and their proportion to the workforce hinder rather than protect young people's ability to learn new skills.
The small size of the apprenticeship program, the lack of coordination between employers and apprentices, the outdated curriculum, the uneven participation of socioeconomic groups in the apprenticeship program, the lack of confidence in the abilities of graduates, and the strict laws governing apprenticeships are some of the apparent difficulties the government faces.
Employers may cover manpower shortfalls by hiring apprenticesbecause they start learning industry-specific skills from day one and build specialized knowledge to increase profits.
Advantages of Apprenticeships
An ILO report envisions first-hand case studies of Indian SMEs comparing the costs and benefits of providing apprenticeships. Surprisingly, they discovered a positive return for the firms as early as the first year following a completed apprenticeship, and in most cases, it had already accrued during the apprenticeship period. Similarly, research from Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom demonstrates that an apprentice contributes productively and provides an additional (often monetary and qualitative) benefit to the organization.
As a result, regardless of industry, investing in an apprenticeship scheme may deliver significant benefits and add to an organization's bottom line.
The aerospace industry and the broader engineering and manufacturing sectors have a long tradition of excellent apprenticeships, with many of the industry's key people having been previous apprentices.
The Indian aerospace sector is one of the world's fastest expanding. So far, imports have largely fulfilled aerospace demand, but it is just a matter of time before the Indian sector seizes growing opportunities. As indigenous efforts to build technology, supply chains, industrial capability, and skills gain traction, apprenticeship will play an important role. Many countries have made efforts to modernize their antiquated apprenticeship program.
Become the New Center of Skills In The World
India must take advantage of its young population by fixing its skill ecosystem and allowing many young people to work and learn. It should also be able to hire quickly and train new workers to meet the changing needs of the job market. Over the next ten years, India needs to raise the number of workers who hire apprentices and the number of apprentices from 500,000 to 10 million. India needs to take advantage of its big population by fixing its skills ecosystem and over the next 25 years, as the world's population ages, India will have a unique chance: every fourth new worker will be from India. This will help India move from fifth place in the world, where it is now, to third place. But India places 142nd in the world in terms of GDP per person, which is a better way to measure wealth and strength. To be in the top 50, one must make themselves more employable.
Enhancing Employability in India
India has a lot of possibilities because of its large population, but it also has a lot of problems because there are still skill gaps. It shouldn't be a surprise that a well-designed training system can help people learn new skills and make them more marketable. The Apprenticeship Protsahan Yojana, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi started, focuses on skill development and shows how much the country can do to give the world the workers it needs by 2020. Once the changes to the Apprenticeships Act go into effect, they will support 1 lakh students and fit in with his plans for skill development.
Conclusion
In conclusion, apprenticeships have the potential to be a powerful tool for boosting youth development and employability. By providing on-the-job training and real-world experience, apprenticeships can help young people acquire the practical skills and knowledge needed to succeed in today's job market. Additionally, apprenticeships benefit employers by providing a skilled workforce and reducing recruitment costs. They also have more comprehensive economic benefits, including reducing youth unemployment and addressing skills shortages in critical industries. As such, investing in apprenticeship programs should be a priority for governments and businesses looking to build a robust and skilled workforce for the future.
By collaborating with companies to create customized training programs and supporting and mentoring apprentices, 2COMS can help promote apprenticeships. 2COMS can also help solve the nation's young unemployment problem by placing apprentices in permanent jobs. So contact 2COMS today to implement an apprenticeship program in your organization.
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