Labor Market Impacts and Effectiveness of Skills Development Programs in India
Over the past few years, the Government of India (GOI) has been implementing five large national skills development (SD) programs to improve the employment and earnings prospects of urban and rural youth. The critical questions to be addressed are: what have been the employment outcomes of those programs?; what earnings premium do one give to trainees?; do program benefits justify the significant public investments made into them?; what organizational aspects affect delivery and reach?; and finally, based on these findings, what should be the course of action? This paper tries to address these questions, using data from a set of surveys of trainees (past and current), non-trainees (comparison group), employers, and training providers. The quantitative analysis has been complemented by a qualitative study based on interviews and focus group discussions, with focus on business processes, program management, and monitoring and evaluation (M and E). Five states have been taken into consideration for this analysis: Assam, Andhra Pradesh (AP), Madhya Pradesh (MP), Odisha, and Rajasthan. This paper comprises several sections. The first section provides introduction. Section two presents skills development programs; section three presents employment outcomes of SD programs; section four presents wage and earnings effects of SD programs; section five is cost-effectiveness of SD programs; section six is India versus international experience; section seven presents findings from the qualitative study; and section eight gives conclusions and policy recommendations.
Summary: | Over the past few years, the Government
of India (GOI) has been implementing five large national
skills development (SD) programs to improve the employment
and earnings prospects of urban and rural youth. The
critical questions to be addressed are: what have been the
employment outcomes of those programs?; what earnings
premium do one give to trainees?; do program benefits
justify the significant public investments made into them?;
what organizational aspects affect delivery and reach?; and
finally, based on these findings, what should be the course
of action? This paper tries to address these questions,
using data from a set of surveys of trainees (past and
current), non-trainees (comparison group), employers, and
training providers. The quantitative analysis has been
complemented by a qualitative study based on interviews and
focus group discussions, with focus on business processes,
program management, and monitoring and evaluation (M and E).
Five states have been taken into consideration for this
analysis: Assam, Andhra Pradesh (AP), Madhya Pradesh (MP),
Odisha, and Rajasthan. This paper comprises several
sections. The first section provides introduction. Section
two presents skills development programs; section three
presents employment outcomes of SD programs; section four
presents wage and earnings effects of SD programs; section
five is cost-effectiveness of SD programs; section six is
India versus international experience; section seven
presents findings from the qualitative study; and section
eight gives conclusions and policy recommendations. |
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