Identification of factors affecting successful outcomes in the DDU-GKY Indian skills programme for unemployed young people

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Youth unemployment and underemployment is a pressing economic and political concern in several developing countries. In the Indian context, this is a particular concern because of the potential that India will not realise its demographic dividend (that is, the benefit of having a large population of working-age people within the total population) if a re-balancing of the economy and skills system is not undertaken to address skills gaps. The most recent Indian Labour Market conference (held in 2015) concluded that a significant number of young people were trapped in involuntary part-time, casual, temporary or seasonal work and lacked access to the kind of personal and professional development activities that could see them move into better and less precarious employment. Since 2003, there has been an increase in training provision by unregulated private sector providers which has contributed to a surplus in some skills and shortages in others, and this is now a critical policy issue. As a result, the Government of India (GoI) is taking a more interventionist role in shaping skills training provision and developing public-private partnerships with training providers and employers. The GoI has launched a number of skills training programmes for rural youths from poor families. Since 2012, it has spent around USD 868 million on such schemes. However, there is limited evidence on who participates in these programmes and their impact on development of personal and social capabilities. Consequently, it is difficult to assess their ability to link job creation to poverty alleviation and the development of a more inclusive society. Motivated by the lack of evidence and the importance given to such schemes in India's growth strategy, we propose to examine participation in and the impact of one of India's major and most prominent skills and job creation schemes, that is, the "Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushal Yojana" (DDU-GKY). Between January 2017 and January 2018, 113,329 young people took part in DDU-GKY training and 69,471 were placed in employment across 398 trades. There were 699 centres delivering training during this period. The programme has a clear mission to engage the most excluded groups and it is proposed that programme participants should include Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (50%), minorities (15%), women (33%) and persons with disabilities (3%).We aim to identify the social factors that influence the ability of the DDU-GKY programme, and other similar programmes, to achieve social development and inclusion and to assess not only whether such programmes lead to sustained employment and higher earnings, but also whether they promote the development of the personal and social capabilities that are linked to employability skills and full engagement in society. Our aim is not to evaluate the overall DDU-GKY programme but to identify factors which will support its success, while simultaneously developing a broader definition of 'success', incorporating measures of social inclusion and employability or soft skills gain and the personal efficacy to employ these skills in the workplace and in wider society. The research also aims to establish the reasons why some groups who are eligible for training are particularly unlikely to register to take part in the programme and to compare skills gain amongst these groups with those who have participated in training.This project will take an innovative local capacity-building approach, and involves the UK research team working in partnership with local academics and training providers in developing quantitative and qualitative instruments. Longitudinal surveys and interviews with programme participants and a control group of eligible non-participants will be used, as well as interviews with training providers and employers in 2 contrasting states, Bihar and Jharkhand.