The need for and importance of raising the skill set in the economically productive sections of the nation’s population, estimated as more than three-fourths of its total headcount have just been bestowed focussed attention by the incumbent governments, both at the centre and a few states, including Karnataka. The much delayed change in the mindset of the powers that be in the matter of skills that nationally generate wealth in the form of goods and services accounting for the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), expressed in monetary terms, may have been triggered by the often publicised opinion in the industry circles that a majority of the youth graduating from the nation’s colleges and Universities in all streams of knowledge namely science, humanities, commerce, engineering, management and so on don’t posses skills at levels of passing the employability norms.

Despite the compulsions of working with tools and materials that bear no resemblance to their modern features such as equipment marked by precision and performing tasks beyond human capability, particularly lifting and moving massive loads to dizzy heights, the land’s people of a distant past stand testimony for their skills, sense of perfection and commitment through their sculptures and structures that have stood intact over several centuries.

Considering the magnitude of the ingredients, both concrete and abstract, that need to be taken into account at macro as well as micro levels in the National task of taking the skill levels of the steadily expanding population, the first two initial baby steps as it were before kick-starting action are marked by (a) Blue print of the programme and (b) Prioritising the areas, in order to avoid straying into blind avenues of the task and diluting the use of resources and effort. While urgency of making a start is unquestionable, the teams that are assigned the responsibility of expediting the task must be protected from the vicious elements of the land’s political class.

The attributes of aptitude and ability to grasp the nuances of myriad skills, traced to the country’s rural areas merit heightened attention in order to address the issue of unemployment while the urban scenario is likely to dominate in the matter of empowering the youth for greater employability.