World Youth Skills Day: Skill India shows we can achieve scale; now, we must link education with work

By Brajesh Kumar Tiwari

Skill India completes 11 years on July 15, 2026. The anniversary is worthy of praise, but it also stands for a frank reckoning. India has introduced a national framework for training, certification, apprenticeships and recognition of prior learning.

Millions of young people have signed up under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana , with courses in new areas like digital and green technologies . But one question remains: has training resulted in long-term employment, better pay and increased confidence among employers? India faces an uncomfortable paradox.

More educated youth are finding it challenging to secure meaningful employment while businesses struggle to recruit job-ready technicians, mechanics, supervisors and service workers. That is so much more than an unemployment problem. It’s a disconnect between what schools are teaching, what certificates say and what workplaces actually need. Skill India’s second decade should be judged not just through enrolment but through the capability and mobility created.

Skill courses after Class 12

The discussion has narrowed sharply lately. Investment professional Saurabh Mukherjee has claimed that many Indian students are much better placed to start work upon completion of Class 12 and/or obtain a practical trade instead of an unfocused university degree.

The country’s Chief Economic Adviser, V Anantha Nageswaran has also urged youth to turn their attention beyond degrees or competitive exams towards real-life occupations and trade skills.

Their remarks may seem harsh, but they’re part of a broader issue: a degree devoid of usable knowledge can become an expensive delay, not an opportunity. The solution is not to shove every 18-year-old into a job.

Such a young person joining a low-paid job free from qualification or training may end up stuck in insecure jobs. India needs routes that enable students to work, learn, then return to formal education without losing years.

Issue not credentials but empty ones

It would be unfair to characterise all graduate courses as “unskilled.” Medicine, engineering, law, teaching, research and so many other vocations require serious higher education. Universities further promote analytical thinking and communication.

The problem comes, however, when a degree offers neither intellectual depth nor occupational competence. Too many students complete generalised degree programmes with little writing practice, minimal digital immersion, no substantial project work and little to no contact with workplaces. They take exams and get test scores, but are seldom required to work on an open problem or prepare a professional report.

When such graduates have problems with recruitment, the failure is partly a product of an education system that equates attendance with learning and qualification with capability.

Skill India: Scale vs results

Skill India is on a massive scale. Programme data show that PMKVY trained or oriented around 1.64 crore candidates by the end of 2025, 1.29 crore of whom were certified. Women made up a large proportion of participants, and PMKVY 4.0 spread to hundreds of industry-aligned and future skill courses.

But certification is just the start. Previous phases had placement numbers around 24.3 lakh candidates out of 56.89 lakh certified under components where placement tracking applied.

India needs to know not only if a candidate had been placed, but if it was a good match with the training, what pay the job offered, whether employment continued six or twelve months later, and if the earnings had improved.

Formal skills training shallow

New labour force surveys show that only a small proportion of Indians aged 15 to 59 have received formal vocational or technical training. A considerable part of the workforce still learns skills informally from family work, watching or informal work.

While valuable, this learning is without properly recognised assessment and workers often have weak bargaining power and limited mobility. It is why India can have graduates who are unemployed , as well as shortages of skilled workers.

The economy needs technicians, health assistants, repair professionals, logistics workers, care workers, machine operators, solar installers and electric vehicle maintenance personnel. Vocational paths are, however, viewed as secondary and so young people are often steered toward a small menu of degrees and government examinations.

Work experience before graduation

Every student should have meaningful work exposure. Classes 11 and 12 schools should provide workplace visits, projects and career exploration. Colleges need to make internships, apprenticeships , field assignments and live projects part of assessment, not mere ceremonial qualifications, a certification arranged at the last moment. Good early work experience instills habits the classroom has difficulty duplicating. Students acquire good punctuality, responsibility, communication, documentation, as well as the consequences of poor quality. They also find out if a job is right for them. A student may decide about a field they want to go into (hospitality, accounting, design, auto repair or digital marketing) based on what he or she experiences and not a prospectus.

India needs a credible post Class 12 apprenticeship pathway that combines paid work with formal learning. A student should be able to spend a year or two working with an enterprise and receiving a stipend, complete supervised training and earning academic credits that are transferrable to a diploma or degree later in life. This would benefit students seeking to make money, get their hands dirty or fear joining an extensive programme too soon.

Apprenticeships cannot be a cheap labour source. Explicit learning objectives, qualified supervisors, reasonable stipends, safety regulations and impartial grading are necessary.

There should be pooled training centres for small businesses, shared instructors and easing compliance. Employers need to design curricula and assess performance as well as just attend placement events.

Universities must accept responsibility

Universities must not be insular coaching centres for companies, but they cannot forgo employment outcomes. Every undergraduate programme must develop communication skills, quantitative thinking, digital readiness, financial literacy, collaboration, and problem-solving.

General degree students should have pursued one significant field project and one concrete workplace experience. Institutions must publish course-wise information on internships, placements, beginning salaries, and further study.

Technology also adds urgency to this reform. More and more companies are looking for people who combine domain expertise with digital tools and artificial intelligence to fill the gap in learning skills, not who do the routine work that software can do automatically. The same applies to adaptability, judgement and lifelong learning. A non-changeable curriculum over years is not going to equip its graduates for a labour market from this stage.

Also read ‘BTech Not Enough’: Outdated engineering curriculum leaves students paying to bridge classroom-to-career gap

Job-shadowing must start at school

Students and parents frequently undertake courses with scant knowledge about what to do, who pays, how to work, or the job’s progression. Career guidance should start before Class 12 and mirror local labour market conditions.

People need to know that different pathways serve different ends. A strong university degree might be required for one career, and an apprenticeship, diploma or industry certification might be more suitable for another. Parents also need to have reassurance that vocational education doesn’t slam the door on higher education . If they were trained as a skilled electrician, a medical technician or a machine operator, they would be able to build credits and progress to advanced qualifications and transitions into supervision, entrepreneurship, or teaching.

What other countries teach India

The most useful comparison for India is not with one ideal “model” country, but with a group of systems that solve different parts of the skilling challenge. Germany shows the strength of linking vocational education directly with work: 89 percent of vocational upper-secondary students learn through combined school-and-work programmes, and 94 percent of recent vocational graduates find employment within two years.

South Korea shows that even when vocational participation is limited, quality assurance and school rigour can protect outcomes. Singapore offers another important lesson: vocational education need not be treated as a second-choice school track. Its post-secondary institutions such as ITE, mandatory work-based learning, and Skills Future ecosystem give skills social value, mobility and lifelong relevance.

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The Philippines demonstrates how competency-based certification can be scaled through a national system, with 13.76 lakh TVET enrollees and 10.81 lakh certified workers in 2024. Brazil shows the role of law-backed apprenticeships, with 7,26,025 active young apprentices by April 2026. India need not copy any foreign model. Its real lesson is to build trusted skills, deeper employer participation, portable qualifications, stronger apprenticeships and measurable employment outcomes beyond enrolment and certification.

Certified India to competent India

The request for students to embark on work after Class 12 is to use caution and not to condemn higher learning. It betrays exasperation with degrees that waste time and money, without establishing competence. India ought to reject the false dichotomy between education and work.

We should allow students to learn in a working environment and work in a learning environment. Skill India’s first 11 years proved the country can build scale and public awareness. Its next phase has to build trust. Training providers should be reimbursed for verified results, employers should craft programmes, and students should receive pocketable credits linking school, vocational training, work, and university studies.

Viksit Bharat will not be constructed solely from certificates. It’ll be constructed when a qualification serves as a credential for genuine ability, when work opens pathways to continued learning, and when any young Indian can pursue a reputable route commensurate with their ability and circumstance. India requires educated workers, skilled graduates and institutions that grasp that knowledge is only valuable if it can be used.

Brajesh Kumar Tiwari is associate professor, Atal Bihari Vajpayee School of Management and Entrepreneurship (ABVSME), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)