Abstract

Skills training have, in fact, in the recent decades come to occupy a new status within national policies – from earlier having been considered short term solutions to address youth and adult employment, to now being seen as central drivers of economic growth and progress in the present times. This new importance given to skills training has earned it the epithet of the “training gospel” – signifying also the unquestioning acceptance of this approach to macro-economic planning by national governments and international development agencies and aid organisations.

In contrast with this, the present project attempts to critically evaluate the skills discourse, the national policy on skills development (i.e., National Policy on Skills development [NPSD 2009], as well as National Policy on Skills Development and Entrepreneurship [NPSDE 2015]). Examining the impact of the policy and the skills discourse both in relation to the national and global visions and framework for education, as well as in relation to its impact on youth, particularly from disadvantaged circumstances (that are the prime targets of such discourse and policies, we attempt to critically make sense of its implications and outcomes. Specifically we sought to examine the national skills policy for India in relation to the following questions:

Analysing the policy and its implementation through these lenses, while also simultaneously contextualising its plan, approach and outcomes in relation to global discourses and practices of skilling, we attempt to fill a key gap in literature – this being the absence of critical, qualitative, sociological literature and micro studies based on field level observations of everyday processes and practices associated with the policy.

Maithreyi, R., Padmanabhan, S., Menon, N., & Jha, J. (2016). Skills development, social mobility and educational change: a sociological analysis of the effects of the national policy on skills development in India. Bengaluru: Centre for Budget and Policy Studies.