Dr Sureshkumar Madhusudanan, 57, is the secretary general of the Indo-Gulf & Middle East Chamber of Commerce and ex-president of the Indian Personnel Export Promotion Council.
A successful businessman in the field of manpower export and deployment, he has initiated a campaign to improve the technical skills of Indian youth so that they are able to meet the changing requirements of industries in India and abroad. S Balakrishnan spoke to him over the weekend on skilling and other issues.
Excerpts:
Q. You are laying a lot of emphasis on issues related to the skilling of our labour. What is the reason for this?
A. The Modi government has been rightly calling for improving the skills of our labour. The global demand is for skilled labour. We are facing a huge shortage of skilled staff. Also, the salaries of Indian labour employed in the Gulf and the Middle East are not increasing because of a lack of adequate skills. Because of foreign exchange fluctuations Indian labour is earning more now than before. But in real terms, there has not been much of an increase in their salaries.
Also, competition from Bangladesh and other countries is intensifying. That is why I thought that skilling should be improved in a big way so that the recruitment prospects both in India and abroad are increased substantially. The world is fast changing and it is necessary that we keep pace. Our chamber has 17 skilling platforms in India and five in the Middle East. The level of formal skilling is 86% in South Korea, 86% in Japan, 69% in Germany and 57% in China.
In India, we have set a target of 50% by 2030. We are the youngest nation in the world with an average of 28.9 years. About 54% of our youth are below the age of 25, but only 4% are skilled.
Q. What is the government doing to improve skilling?
A. The government has set up the National Skill Development Corporation. The initiative was taken by the UPA II government. However, the Modi government under the leadership of Minister for Education Dharmendra Pradhan is moving very fast in this regard and is taking all the stakeholders into confidence.
The problem is humongous since 1.5 crore people are entering the job market annually and of that 70 lakh are looking for formal jobs. Manpower export can be substantially increased provided the personnel are adequately skilled. This is where Pradhan and the ministry are devoting a lot of time and money to improve the employability rate.
Q. What challenge Indian industry is facing in this regard?
A. About 62% of employers are facing the problem of mismatch between the candidates’ skills and the requirements of their jobs. In India, about 70% of training is done post-recruitment. Employers are willing to offer higher salaries, provided employees are able to improve their skills. The need is to involve academia in this process.
We have 1,200 universities, 56,000 colleges, 10,500 engineering colleges and 36 lakh engineering students of whom 15 lakh graduate each year. But not even 20% of them are employable. Only 7% get the deserved jobs. The situation has become grim with 33% of engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu having zero admission. About 80% of IIT and IIM graduates look for jobs abroad. We have the world’s third-largest education system and second-largest in terms of technical education. But our ranking is very low. The colleges lack infrastructure and 44% of the faculty have no doctoral degrees. However, I am very hopeful that India will be able to create a massive pool of skilled manpower.
