In the past few months, the entire world has undergone a recession due to the coronavirus outbreak. While the majority of youth was already struggling to make a living, the pandemic has further snatched millions of jobs, pushing them into the abyss. Yet the search for jobs continues.
As per the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) study, about 93 percent of the workforce does not have any skilling mechanism, and largely depends on the skill development taking place on the job. Employers have found that only about 25 percent of Indian graduates are ‘employable’ in the organized sector. Some of the reasons could be a very dismal connection between formal and vocational education, meager training facilities, under-qualified trainers, and lack of infrastructural facilities.
Here’s where the need for reorganization of the skill-development ecosystem arises.
Meghna Joshi, a 30-year-old social entrepreneur from New Delhi understood these factors very well having worked several years in the corporate and social sectors. She very well knew the “pain points” of students coming from economically weaker backgrounds as well as their employers.
Thus, she launched SWAN (Skilled Workforce Advancing Nation), a startup based in Delhi and incubated under ACIIE, Ambedkar University Delhi which aims to enhance the skill sets of candidates from all sections of the society. The social enterprise’s main focus is to impart specially designed training programs and counseling sessions for grooming the youthful workforce for employment opportunities.
SWAN has been named after the ‘vaahan’ of the Hindu goddess of education, Saraswati. The organization not only trains the students with skill sets but also assists them post-placement.
Joshi was born to a geologist father and an accountant mother both of whom have served in senior positions in the Government of India. Her father who specializes in polar studies is currently a guest faculty with the University of Delhi and is one of the key supporters of SWAN. Besides working in the corporate until last year, Meghna has had the eye of an artist and a photographer.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the operations at the TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) institutions came to a complete halt, impacting the job aspirations of innumerable youth. To tackle the situation, SWAN launched two new online platforms Skillx_Aspirelabs and SLEEPY EYE. The Skillx_Aspirelabs is a series of specially designed workshops to train the youth for the competitive professional environment. The other platform is an art campaign with the name ‘SLEEPY EYE’ under which a pan-India art platform ArtxClimate Justice, India Chapter has been put up.
“The online workshop sessions conducted so far aim at enhancing the proficiency in Writing Emails, Setting Goals, Creative Planning through Art based Interventions and modules on Self Discovery, Effective Communication, and Leadership skills. All the courses are designed in-house under the guidance of experts and had been subjected to critical reviews. These have been fine-tuned as per the feedback from the participants. User surveys are being conducted among different categories to evaluate the requirement of a particular theme. We also connect with sample users to understand in detail the problems being faced by them and the skills they wish to learn or upgrade.” Meghna says.
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In a quest to attain sustainable development, the SDGs-2030 which advocates technical, vocational education training (TVET), decent work opportunities for promoting inclusive and sustainable economic growth and providing help to young adults, the team at SWAN plans to diversify more into e-learning program so that they can impart skill-based learning to many more students.
The conventional educational framework is inadequate in skilling the youth as the population in India is quite vast and this calls for a combined effort from private organizations, says Meghna.
“The government alone cannot accomplish such a gigantic task. While corporate institutions have done their bit to compliment the ‘Skill India’ mission and have increased the number of youth trained in different vocational skills, there is still a significant number of skilled and unskilled youth who are unemployed. Addressing this issue in a comprehensive manner would call for a concerted effort by the government, private players and NGOs,” she said.
To date, SWAN has trained 55 working professionals in their in-class and upskilling programs. A cohort of around 13 more students is undergoing mentorship under the campus ambassador program.
In a country of more than 1.3 billion, programs like SWAN are quintessential to survive in the rat race out there. What Meghna and her team are doing is truly uplifting and we wish all the students under SWAN, a wonderful future.