Significance of Vocational Training to Skill Development
The role of skill development in facilitating social and economic progress has long been recognized. It improves functional and analytical ability and there by opens opportunities for individuals and groups to achieve greater access to labor markets and livelihoods from a basic level. A better skilled labor force is essential if we are to meet the labor supply requirements of faster growth. Skill development is not only an instrument of enhancing efficiency but is also an effective tool of widening and augmenting democratic participation and upgrading the overall quality of individual and societal life. Skill development enhances the skills of the individual either from an unorganized or an organized lower level employee/entrepreneur to better earning and skilled person. It also creates a different social image as the person grows along his career and economic conditions.
Skills and knowledge are the engines of economic growth and social development of any country. Countries with higher and better levels of knowledge and skills respond more effectively and promptly to challenges and opportunities of globalization. India is in transition to a knowledge based economy and its competitive edge will be determined by the abilities of its people to create, share and use knowledge more effectively. This transition will require India to develop workers into knowledge workers who will be more flexible, analytical, and adaptable and skilled. In the new knowledge economy, the skill sets will include professional, managerial, operational, behavioral, inter personal and inter functional skills. India needs skill training system that will provide the foundation for learning and to develop competencies of individuals by learning and earning.
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