Note: This topic is important for TISSNET.
The Ministry of Labour and Employment and UNICEF have signed a Statement of Intent to promote job opportunities for India’s young.
- According to the 2011 Census, every fifth person in India is a young person (15-24 years).
- UNICEF is a United Nations (UN) special programme dedicated to assisting national efforts to enhance children’s health, nutrition, education, and overall well-being. UNICEF’s main report is titled “The State of the World’s Children.”
Purpose of this Collaboration:
- Its goal is to establish a platform for collaboration between the Ministry and UNICEF in order to leverage both parties’ existing mainstreamed projects in a few states.
- This project will co-create and scale solutions to address the employment and skilling difficulties faced by adolescents and youth in India, with a particular focus on vulnerable groups.
- Young persons with special needs, youth leaving care institutions, migratory youth, victims of child labour, abuse, child marriage, and trafficking, among others, are among the vulnerable populations.
Areas of Collaboration:
- Making connections between young people and job prospects.
- Improving young people in 21st century skills such as life skills, financial skills, digital skills, and vocations skills, among other things.
- Increasing the effectiveness of the National Career Service (NCS).
- Understanding the gaps might help with job predictions.
- Supporting direct conversation and the creation of a feedback mechanism between policymakers and young.
National Career Service (NCS)
About
- It was launched in 2015 as part of the e-governance initiative.
- It is a one-stop shop that offers inhabitants of India a wide range of employment and career-related services.
Nodal Ministry: Ministry of Labour & Employment.
Three Pillars: The NCS project reaches out to the people of this country through its three essential pillars i.e.
- A well designed ICT based portal which is NCS portal,
- Country wide set up of Model Career Centers and
- Interlinkage with all the states through employment exchanges.
UNICEF’s Initiative (YuWaah):
- YuWaah, the India chapter of Generation Unlimited (GenU), was founded in 2018.
- GenU is a multi-stakeholder global platform aimed at preparing young people for productive job and engaged citizenship.
- YuWaah’s goal in India is to achieve the following by 2030:
- Create pathways to aspirational economic prospects for 100 million young people.
- Facilitate the acquisition of appropriate skills for productive life and the future of work for 200 million young people
- Create venues for 300 million young people to build their leadership skills by partnering with them as changemakers.
Other Initiatives Taken to Improve Employability of the Youth
- The National Youth Policy of 2014 has a holistic vision for India’s youth, which is to “empower the country’s youth to reach their full potential, and through them, enable India to reclaim its rightful place in the international world.”
- PMEGP (Prime Ministerial Employment Generation Program): It was created in 2008 with the goal of creating jobs through the formation of micro firms in both rural and urban regions. The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises is in charge of it.
- The Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) was established in 2015 to provide non-corporate, non-farm small/micro-enterprises with loans of up to Rs. 10 lakh. It emphasises self-employment.
- PMRPY (Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Protsahan Yojana): The Ministry of Labour and Employment has launched it in order to encourage employers to promote job creation. For the next three years, the government would pay the whole employer payment to EPF and EPS for all qualifying new employees in all sectors.
- Increased government spending on programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA), the Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY) run by the Ministry of Rural Development, and the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM) run by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
- Make in India, Digital India, Swachh Bharat Mission, Smart City Mission, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation, Housing for All, Industrial Corridors, and other flagship programmes with the potential to generate employment.