Celebrating International Youth Day with a Focus on Skill Development

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • India’s Youth Population: An Overview
  • The Importance of International Youth Day
  • International Youth Day 2024 Theme
  • Skill Development Initiatives in India
  • Empowering Youth through Skill Development
  • The Role of Youth in Achieving UN SDGs
  • Conclusion
  • Call to action on International Youth Day

Introduction

Every year on August 12, the world observes International Youth Day, a day devoted to acknowledging the contributions made by youth to society and addressing the issues they encounter. This day, which was declared by the UN in 2000, underscores the significance of enabling young people to act as change agents and the critical role that they play in attaining sustainable development on a worldwide scale. Examining the significance of International Youth Day and the critical role that skill development has in influencing our youth’s futures is imperative as we celebrate this day.

An Overview of World Youth Day

World Youth Day provides an excellent opportunity for people all over the world to get the message out about the lived realities of young people in their countries. It is an occasion to highlight the sort of problems that too often get neglected—like the high rate of unemployment among young people, for instance. Or the obstacles far too many young people run up against when they try to claim their rights. World Youth Day is a good day to bring attention to issues with social inclusion or mental health.

Significance of International Youth Day

  • International Youth Day is significant because it lies in its ability to mobilize efforts to support young people globally. It is a rallying point, potentially at least, for pushing us not to forget that the world’s young people need our help – and specifically our policy help – to have a chance at leading decent lives. On this day, we also pay attention to the importance of vocational skills and education. As mentioned above, As we celebrate International Youth Day, we are reminded of the need to invest in our youth, ensuring they have the tools and opportunities to contribute meaningfully to society.

 

India’s Youth Population: An Overview

  • Demographic Insights

One of the world’s largest populations of young people lives in India, with over 600 million individuals below the age of 35. This massive demographic could be the engine that drives India’s economic and social progress. But that won’t just happen. It is incumbent upon the nation’s leadership, in both the public and private sectors and at all levels, to ensure that young people have the opportunities they need in life. Consider three critical domains in which the leadership must act: education, employment, and skill development.

  • Opportunities and Challenges

The youthful Indian demographic offers a splendid chance for the nation to vault into the ranks of the upper-middle-income countries, at least on account of the labor it can supply for the next 30 years. If it invests appropriately in the education and skills of the youthful population, the nation can harness a workforce that has the potential to serve both the domestic and the global economy. Yet, an economy that supplies sufficient jobs commensurate with the skills acquired is still a distant dream. And since the issue is too large for the Indian government to handle alone, we need a partnership between the public and private sectors—and, at the community level, something akin to the old labor unions that serve, in the modern era, as essential scaffolding for community life.

The Importance of International Youth Day

  • Why It Matters Globally

International Youth Day is a worldwide event. It’s not just one nation’s business; it’s the day for all countries to recognize the trials and tribulations that their young people yield to. Why? Because these aren’t just challenges faced by isolated groups of youth. They are international problems. Mental health crises, and youth unemployment—these are our collective responsibility to address. Not tomorrow, but now. do you know U.N. highlights that youth themselves have the potential to be the “drivers of change.”

  • Key Themes and Focus Areas

Every year, International Youth Day has a specific theme reflecting the current global scene. Sometimes the theme carries over from the previous year. For example, the 2024, the theme is “From Clicks to Progress: Youth Digital Pathways for Sustainable Development,” which emphasizes the role of digital technologies in advancing sustainable development goals (SDGs) and empowering youth to be at the forefront of this progress. In 2023 theme, “Green Skills for Youth: Towards a Sustainable World,” is bookended by “Sustainable Development” in 2022 and “Youth as Key Agents of Change for Sustainable Development” in 2021.

International Youth Day 2024 Theme

“From Clicks to Progress: Youth Digital Pathways for Sustainable Development”

The theme of International Youth Day 2024 is “From Clicks to Progress: Youth Digital Pathways for Sustainable Development.” This theme emphasizes the potentially powerful role that digital technologies could play in achieving the sustainable development agenda. Today’s increasingly digitized societies offer young people all the tools they need to come up with new, innovative, and often unimagined solutions to the unsolved problems of their immediate communities, and to those of the global community. In the youth of today, this day recognizes a generation that is not afraid to embrace society’s tools of digital socialization to effect meaningful change.

The link between sustainable development and digital technologies is clear in a number of sectors, including education, healthcare, agriculture, and conservation. Digital tools and platforms allow young people to access information, connect with others, and engage in worldwide conversations about topics that really matter to them. And since those same digital tools and platforms are becoming essential for employability, it is more important than ever for young people to develop core competencies around them. On August 12, 2024, International Youth Day is focused on “Pathways to a Digital World.”

Skill Development Initiatives in India

Government and Non-Government Programs                                                               

Promoting youth skills has seen immense payoffs in India. Be it the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) or the National Skill Development Mission, these government programs have achieved tangible results across the spectrum of vocational training. Millions of young people have been trained through this mechanism. Non-skilling organizations (NGOs) and private-sector players, even more, have added to the portfolio of skill development by offering a plethora of different training programs. Scholarships and mentorships have also been served up as part of the skill development menu.

Skill India Mission and Its Impact

Launched in 2015, the Skill India Mission is one of the Indian government’s most ambitious initiatives for skill development. The government has set the target that by 2022, more than 400 million people in this country will have received skill training, a mandate whose centrepiece is the training of the youth of this country. The mission has a rather expansive reach, covering diverse sectors like manufacturing, construction, healthcare, and information technology. Employability— that’s the litmus test for any skill development program. So far, 12 million people have been directly trained by the various arms of this initiative. The number is likely to keep climbing.

Integrating Vocational Skills into Education

A principal tactic for boosting skill development in India is threading vocational skills into the basic education system. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has hurled forth the need for a multidisciplinary approach to education, which includes the incorporation of vocational training at various levels of schooling. This ensures that pupils acquire not only the theoretical but also the practical knowledge that will enable them to perform tasks competently on the job. Whether at the upper primary, secondary, or higher secondary level, ED has shifted tactics across these performer grades. By integrating vocational skills into the education system, India is taking a significant step toward addressing the skills gap and preparing its coming of age for the global job market.

Role of Vocational Skills in Youth Empowerment

The practical knowledge and expertise that youth need to be empowered and succeed in the world are instilled through vocational training. The types of learning that occur in vocational settings are very different from the types of learning that happen in traditional academic settings. The learning that happens in vocational settings is much more direct and applicable to the world of work. We believe that the youth of today can find great success and increased employability when they dedicate themselves to the types of learning that lead to practical knowledge and expertise in specific trades and professions.

SSDF Safety Skill Development Foundation’s Contributions

The Safety Skill Development Foundation (SSDF) leads in promoting vocational training in occupational safety and health. It is committed to the development of National Occupational Standards and the delivery of training programs customized to the needs of individual industries. To ensure the high quality of its training and its consistency with industry standards, SSDF offers National Skills Qualification Framework-aligned certifications. It provides initiatives in a variety of industry sectors—such as oil and gas, infrastructure, mining, and manufacturing—that target each sector’s particular and unique safety challenges. Overall, the SSDF seeks not only to fulfill these challenging and demanding sectoral safety training needs but also to empower young people with the skills they need to thrive in these industries.

Importance of Vocational Skills for Youth

It Cannot be overstated the importance of vocational skills for youth. In the current job market, with so much competition, having a specialized skill is practically a prerequisite for being able to find a decent job. That industry in which you work should be defined by having specialized skills—that’s the knowledge base you need to have any pathway toward a successful career. So, on that note, we understand that vocational training and equipping youth with the capacity to have a skill set—where they’re able to, right after high school, go into the workforce or continue to an improved pathway in life without having to rely upon necessarily a liberal arts education or something that doesn’t have that same vocational emphasis—that is vitally reductive in terms of unemployment and socially inclusive.

The Role of Youth in Achieving UN SDGs

The UN SDGs can direly use the enthusiasm, energy, and direct action that young people bring. They can make a difference in achieving the SDGs. They can rally others around them, bring attention to vital issues, and advocate for the policies necessary to promote sustainable development. And given that young people represent a substantial part of the population in many of the countries where SSDF works, it makes sense for us to act in a manner that is consistent with the principles of the SDGs and helps develop the leadership of these young folks.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), resonate deeply with the work and mission of the SSDF. We strive to make vocational training and certification accessible across the spectrum of skills that the workforce needs—next to the economic path that our societies can travel—so that citizens have the opportunity to attain dignified and meaningful work in a manner that is safe, secure, and healthful. Our commitment is to walk slightly more than arm-in-arm with the SDGs, day after day, in the pursuit of a path to sustainable development for all.

Conclusion

The Future of Youth in India

India’s young men and women have a future filled with potential. Their many opportunities for development would seem to cover the main areas of trouble that our young people today face. Yet, at the same time, this development often runs counter to what is necessary to prepare these young people for productive lives and to fill the leadership and skilled manpower gaps that will only widen as the current 30-year demographic dividend finishes playing out. Take vocational training. In India, this has become a dirty phrase, synonymous with low quality and out-of-date. Meanwhile, the Education Ministry has planned the introduction of the Skill India program, which carries the same low expectations.