Skill-building and employability training for disadvantaged young people in India: experience of Gram Tarang employability training services created by Dechiraju Narasimha Rao, Abhinav Madan and Edakkandi Meethal Reji

Young people in India make up 19 per cent of the population and, despite growing demands for skilled employees, the unemployment rate is at 50 per cent for youth across the country. Traditional approaches to preparing people for employment have had very low levels of success, with some students dropping out of programmes, and others unable to find employment despite completing training. This article describes the experience of Gram Tarang Employability Training Services Ltd (GTETS) in providing skills development and employability training to disadvantaged young people in India. Unlike the traditional models of skills training by public and private institutions, GTETS adopts a market-led business model that improves upon quality of curriculum, infrastructure, qualifications of faculty, industry interface to ensure placement, and cost sharing of the training programmes to make it affordable and sustainable.