Skills and Education : UK India Business Council

Formalising the informal sector: Road map to a skilled India

(Jan 2012) Less than two decades ago, the rapidly increasing population of India was considered a Malthusian nightmare. It is now perceived as a ‘demographic dividend’. India’s fast growing workforce is being considered as one of the key drivers that will help the country achieve superpower status in the next 10 years. However, there are strong counter voices. India is a vibrant economy with potential, but it is and has been a society of privilege and inequality. For any development to be meaningful, inclusive growth has to be India’s most important tenet. The challenge of skilling 500 million by 2022 is compounded by the fact that 50 per cent of these people are at the bottom of the pyramid, socially disadvantaged with very little education (20 per cent drop out after class 5), and with practically no skills at all (less than 2 out of 10 are employable). Should India fail to skill these youth and make them employable, the ‘demographic dividend’ will not be realised.

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Sector Member Services

The UKIBC launched a new service tailor-made for SMEs: the UKIBC Online Sector Service on July 1st.

This online service provides intelligence, events, reports, and creates "communities" by linking large and small companies around specific industry sectors.

The Sector Service offers:

Frequent news updates via the UKIBC website e.g. transactions, government announcements, press reports, etc.
A quarterly report on each sector, featuring market trends, case studies of UK companies succeeding in India, profiles of leading Indian businesses, and business opportunities.
Free access to UKIBC events in your particular sector.
Free access to networking events with visiting Indian delegations.
Discounted fees for UKIBC delegations in the particular sector.
Exclusive access to UKIBC's Online Business Forum for UK and Indian companies (hub.ukibc.com)
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Online Sector Membership Application Form

Sector Opportunities

Plenty of projects are underway, and they’re moving quickly.

The UK India Skills Forum is working on projects with big Indian corporates. It’s also talking to the UK and Indian governments about how to meet training and skills targets.It’s in talks with a big automotive company and a major energy organisation about internal training. And they’re looking to collaborate with a major skills and training provider. Learn more about the UK India Skills Forum here

Tata Chemicals are undertaking a joint venture with the National Skills Development Corporation to train rural trainers in proper agricultural chemical use. And Centum Learning plan to train 11.7 million people over the next decade – 56 UKISF companies have already said they want to be involved.

Skills and Education Report