The Need of the Hour is Skill Training Date:   Thursday , May 28, 2015 Kamini Prasad, COO of Professional Education and Training at Centum Learning talks about the shortcomings of the recent graduates seeking employment and how these can be contained. 1. Where do you think institutions fall short in delivering these skills to its students? \"Soft Skill\" leads to Personality Development, which needs to begin from early years of life, at home and at school. It is important to note that the Soft Skills Training impacts in differing degrees, depending upon the educational and social background of the candidate. The same holds true for Vocational Skills, where a crash course cannot teach students Technical/ Vocational Skills. It is with this understanding that Vocational Skills are now being introduced in class IX with Level-1 under NSQF and goes up to Level-10. The other aspect is that Institutions fall short in delivering these Skills in terms of Application of Theoretical principles. 2. How important is skill development with respect to day-to-day life? Based on a research that was conducted, there are 9 Core Skills which helps an individual to be successful both at work place and in personal life. These skills are Communication, Team Work, Problem Solving, Self Management, Planning and Organizing, Technology, Ability to Learn, Initiative and Enterprise and Life Skills. It is true that the skill a person obtains in their personal lives is applied in their professional lives in terms of communication and others. These experiences and Learning enable the person to also take decisions while dealing with customers, interacting with co-workers, communicating ideas and achievements. 3. What does it take trainees to be market ready and get employment? The biggest challenge is that most graduates lack the necessary Employability or Core Skills. As a result the abilities of the graduates to conduct in the work environment in terms of Communication, Presentation, Interpersonal skills, Team working and others do not meet the desired levels. A very important aspect is the change in role from \"Student\" to \"Worker\" also does not sync in well, as most of the Institutes do not prepare the candidates for the new working world. Then the lack of preparation for the Interview / Selection Process could be another reason for failure. Typically these include- Awareness about the Industry, Company, Nature of Products and Services, Understanding of one\'s role in the company. 5. What must one look at other than the quality of service they offer to get promoted in a job or to grow economically? Hard work, sincerity and Passion for work drive the individual to Learn Unlearn Relearn depending upon the need of the situation. And this is critical to not only grow but even survive in the industry. Therefore it is very important for the person to keep abreast of the latest developments in the respective field and adapt to the ever changing environment. Quality of service, in today\'s time is only a basic requirement that is expected from every employee. 6. With regard to the rise in BPOs in the country, how are workers trained in Indian BPOs? How sustainable is the training given in BPOs? BPO employees are typically imparted trainings on Core Skills apart from domain needs for example social skills, customer service skills, etiquette training, accent reduction, cross-cultural communication, global English, problem solving skills, time management, e-mail and phone etiquette, selling skills and customer relationship management among others. They have structured Training Systems and Implementation which have in built Audits and corrective actions, too. It is difficult to comment on how sustainable the training in BPO is. International BPOs have their own systems in place for training and retraining the employees. Even small domestic BPOs have been taking significant steps in training employees. Hence the sustainability of the training models varies across different Organizations and depends upon the nature and quality of trainings, it s delivery, its periodicity and post training evaluation mechanisms. 7. What could be the better way(s) in improvising training from an educational point of view? As India progressively moves toward becoming a knowledge economy, it has become imperative for its work force to acquire and upgrade skills that are relevant in the emerging economic environment. Today only 25 percent of the Graduates are considered employable by Employers. Firstly, the need of the hour is a deeper connection between the Academia and the Industry. The Programs need to be industry specific and prepared in consultation with the Industry Experts to impart training which would actually enable the candidates to work effectively on job in terms of Domain Knowledge, Technical Skills and Soft Skills. Secondly, education and training has to be from the Learner\'s perspective and thus there should be a change in the teaching / training pedagogies that suit the student\'s requirements, their preferences and backgrounds. Thirdly, the approach in imparting training needs to be Practice oriented instead of Theory focus. The practical way can be adopted by encouraging the students in applying Learning in their day to day personal lives, discussions around real life business / industry cases, on the job experiences, exposure visits and so on. Kamini Prasad As COO – Professional Education & Training at Centum Learning Limited, She heads the Education Division. She played a pioneering role in reforming higher education by building a sharply segmented approach. Under her leadership, Centum Learning provides Vocational Training across various sectors. She is also a proud recipient of the Women Leaders Award in India 2010 awarded by iGroup and NDTV Profit in the category of \'Leading Woman Chief Operating Officer\'.