Futureskills in the Digital era

Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow

Anthony J D’Angelo

Well…while growing from student to employee is a long journey. The journey may not be the same for every individual and every generation. Our way of imparting education and learning also have changed dramatically so much in last 3 decades, with advent of computers, Internet and its access in acquiring of knowledge and information on any topic through various sources have started disrupting our classroom learning experience.

Today acquiring of knowledge & information about anything is possible through internet its access from one place to anyplace, from one time to anytime and anywhere, from one computer to multiple computers to tablets and mobile devices. It had started disrupting various businesses models and impact on economic outcomes and it going to impact education & learning in a huge way going forward. It is only going to increase its penetration and disrupt very age old ways of educating and learning.

We at NASSCOM have been in several meetings with engineering college graduates, passed out graduate students undergoing trainings in private Institutes, IT Employees, L&D professionals, HR professionals talking about the need of enormous power of formalised informal learning and continuous learning platform.

As we walk through out academic colleges, training institutions, & enterprise’s learning frameworks and talk with people about the need to expand their concept of learning, we received many positive interesting inputs and feedback on their experiences of learning and need for aggregator online learning platform.

Future employees would no longer want to wait for the university to offer the right courses. While some autonomous institutes have started new subjects on new technologies, but they lack on relevant content, lab environment to develop the required skills on these technologies. They want to be able to get information online when they need it, at any place any time. They are keen in learning online about new technologies, while very few do register for such courses, most of them are not sure which course to register for on online. Top space where institutions are lacking are in – academic infrastructure, guidance, industry and practical exposure, foundation knowledge on new technologies, proper assessment certification, etc.

Challenges:

·         35% feel their current curriculum structure does not support learning about futuristic technologies

·         61% preferred guided learning

·         87% feel foundation courses on new technologies in their undergraduate courses is necessary

Opportunities:

·         85% say skills on new technologies will be needed in the future job market.

·         93% say better knowledge about these technologies will help them better anchor their career

·         94% would prefer in self-learning

·         80% feel Institutions will recognize skill training based Internship

·         54% would prefer these courses to be an add-on over it being credit courses.

·         48% prefer blended mode of learning

·         71% prefer group learning

·         61 % prefer guided learning

·         88% agree to the need of having aggregator skilling platform, certification, and curriculum sought out features

·         75% would like a subsidy based skilling ecosystem by Govt., Industry and academia

As we move to understand our next set of audience, the passed out graduates who need jobs and their struggle to up-skill or become employable to the industry needs, every research report highlights on the employability quotient especially lack of their domain skills and softs skills relevant to industry needs. This is where the role of private training institutes becomes critical as suppliers of trained talent pool to the requirements of IT companies and Hyderabad is a thriving market for such institutions who also supporting reskilling of existing IT employees on the latest technologies. While most of them do register for online courses vast majority fail to complete those course do to varied reasons.

We had an opportunity of interacting with both passed out graduates as well as IT employees who are currently pursuing traditional or basic programing course on C, C++, .net, java to high end courses like Data science, AI, ML, etc. to understand their preparedness on learning these new technology courses either online or offline and the following are some insights of our research on their informal & continuous learning needs.

·         42% feel they are preparing well for the Industry 4.0

·         68% say their training institute does not provide online mode of training

·         70% of IT Employees undergoing high end courses training feel their courses cover new technologies

Challenges:

·         Relevant Skill, Time, and Cost

·         Factors affecting completion of courses – Course duration, Relevant content, Not self-motivated

·         62% and more say they were not successful in completing any online courses

·         Only 49% say current curriculum structure will be able to support incoming futuristic tech.

Opportunities:

·         68% feel the need to have an aggregator platform which provides skilling on Futuristic technology in India, driven by Govt., Industry, and Academia

·         41% feel this platform should offer classroom based training; while 38% go for blended platform

·         64% think that informal ways of learning can impact the overall learning of futuristic technology

Existing employees, new hires, and management trainees, though have access to learning through LMS or through online MOOCS courses and reference materials, lack information published online on day to day basis in form of research papers, used cases, virtual labs, assessments etc. for constant reskilling & up-skilling to stay relevant in ever changing business needs. Existing employees experience ranging from 4 month to 16 years are part of this research and our learnings are highlighted below.

• ·         76% of them are currently working on Digital Technologies, like Microservers, Cyber, Cloud, AI, ML, IoT, etc.
• ·         82% of them agree that more advanced technology can be used to do their work
• ·         91% of them feel the need to upgrade or up-skill on these futuristic technology to stay relevant in the future 

Challenges:

·         Time, Relevant courses, and cost

·         82% agree that both technical and soft skills will play vital role in performance of their job in future

·         56% say they do not get any lab environment to practise.

·         56% say they choose time beyond office hours if they want to up-skills

Opportunities:

• 50% prefer blended learning;
• 32% prefer online learning; 17% prefer classroom based learning.
• 79% show interest in learning new technology
• 88% would prefer investing in self-learning
• 97% agree that an aggregation platform to skill is needed in India and should offer blended mode of learning
• 100% say that platform (and if it offers certificate) should be driven by Government, Industry, and Academia.

The business environment in the last 5-10 years has changed dramatically. According to Gartner report

87% of business leaders, digitization is a top priority. These changes have led to three important demands for learning:  Learning must be available “on-demand,” it must be “job-relevant,” and it must be “constantly changing.”  These new drivers are making the existing ways of learning in corporate or university models impossible to maintain pace with constantly changing Industry needs

Today’s growing economy needs a constant supply of skilled manpower relevant to companies. But our emphasis on degree’s rather than a skill is stumbling block in the way of economic growth. On one hand India has a large number of educated and unemployed graduates, on the other hand Industry is desperately short of skilled professionals. In the wake of the changing economic environment it is necessary to focus on inculcating and advancing the skill sets, especially Digital Technology skills to the young population of the country.

To address the above challenges there are online learning experience platforms - it exists because the paradigm of the learning management system is getting out dated. People no longer search for courses the way they used to we need a way to train and learn “in the flow of work” or learning in the flow.

What this means is that LXP system has a set of key capabilities.

1.     They present content in “Netflix-like” interface, with recommendations, panels, mobile interfaces, and ML driven recommendations

2.     They accommodate any form of content, including articles, podcasts, blogs, micro learning, videos, and courses.

3.     They are social, and they include social profiles which connect content to people to create authority

4.     They have paths or learning track or trails so you can follow content to logical learning outcome.

5.     They have some form of assessment and often badging or certification.

6.     They make it easy to publish your own content as an individual.

7.     They are mobile, fun to use, fast and easy to traverse and have great search and embedded learning features.

As we understand from above insights through various stakeholders the beginning of a new wave of learning experience is only going to increase and as you search for your next learning platform make sure you look around for the options which are clearly expanding. Futureskills portal is one such experience which will help the Indian IT-ITeS industry in reskilling/up-upskilling. Futureskills phase 2 will also be available to students in near future.

India is set to become the youngest country by 2020

This demographic potential offers India and its economy an unprecedented edge

Every third person in an Indian city today is a youth. In about seven years, the median individual in India will be 29 years, very likely a city-dweller, making it the youngest country in the world. India is set to experience a dynamic transformation as the population burden of the past turns into a demographic dividend, but the benefits will be tempered with social and spatial inequalities. These are some of the findings of the ‘State of the Urban Youth, India 2012: Employment, Livelihoods, Skills,’ a report published by IRIS Knowledge Foundation in collaboration with UN-HABITAT. A closer analysis of the urban youth suggests that greater political participation, engagement at a policy level and urgent attention to improving their quality of life can ensure that India enjoys the benefits of this dividend. The report traces the incredible rise — and the eventual decline — of this cohort in India. The population in the age-group of 15-34 increased from 353 million in 2001 to 430 million in 2011. Current predictions suggest a steady increase in the youth population to 464 million by 2021 and finally a decline to 458 million by 2026.

By 2020, India is set to become the world’s youngest country with 64 per cent of its population in the working age group. With the West, Japan and even China aging, this demographic potential offers India and its growing economy an unprecedented edge that economists believe could add a significant 2 per cent to the GDP growth rate. But the report suggests urban spaces have not necessarily aided the quality of life enjoyed by Indian youth. A telling sign: one-fifth of the Indian urban population lives on less than a dollar a day. Additionally, the report finds that while income levels in cities may appear to be higher, the cost of living is also constantly increasing, resulting in shrinking savings, inadequate access to health care and lack of quality education. Maternal mortality remains the ‘top cause of death among young women.’ Further, more than half of young urban women are anemic, pointing to inadequate food and nutrition. The report’s findings indicate that the problem is not urbanization per se but the inequalities that it seems to accentuate.

While India is undergoing a demographic transition, regional disparities in education mean the benefits will not be evenly spread across the country. The report says the southern and western States will be the first to experience a growth dividend as they accounted for 63 per cent of all formally trained people. The largest share of youth with formal skills was found in Kerala, followed by Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. Among those undergoing training, Maharashtra had the highest share, Bihar the lowest. The unequal access to opportunity and the lack of emphasis on education remains a persistent problem. The report finds that a person in an urban area has a 93 per cent greater chance of acquiring training than someone in a rural area.