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

在一些发展中国家，青年失业和就业不足是一个紧迫的经济和政治问题。在印度的背景下，这是一个特别令人担忧的问题，因为如果不对经济和技能体系进行再平衡，以解决技能差距，印度可能无法实现其人口红利(即在总人口中拥有大量劳动年龄人口的好处)。最近一次印度劳动力市场会议(于2015年举行)得出的结论是，相当数量的年轻人被困在非自愿的兼职、临时或季节性工作中，缺乏能够帮助他们进入更好和不那么不稳定的就业的那种个人和专业发展活动。自2003年以来，不受监管的私营部门提供者提供的培训有所增加，这导致一些技能过剩，而另一些技能短缺，这现在是一个关键的政策问题。因此，印度政府在提供技能培训以及与培训机构和雇主发展公私伙伴关系方面发挥着更具干预性的作用。尼泊尔政府为来自贫困家庭的农村青年推出了一些技能培训方案。自2012年以来，它已在此类计划上花费了约8.68亿美元。然而，关于谁参与这些方案及其对个人和社会能力发展的影响的证据有限。因此，很难评估它们将创造就业与减贫和发展更具包容性的社会联系起来的能力。由于缺乏证据以及印度增长战略中对这类计划的重视，我们建议审查印度主要和最突出的技能和创造就业计划之一，即“Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushal Yojana”(DDU-GKY)的参与及其影响。2017年1月至2018年1月，113,329名年轻人参加了DDU-GKY培训，69,471人在398个行业找到了就业机会。在此期间，有699个中心提供培训。该方案的明确使命是让最受排斥的群体参与，并建议方案参与者应包括在册种姓/在册部落(50%)、少数群体(15%)、妇女(33%)和残疾人(3%)。我们的目标是查明影响DDU-GKY方案和其他类似方案实现社会发展和包容的能力的社会因素，并不仅评估这些方案是否带来持续就业和更高的收入，而且评估这些方案是否促进个人和社会能力的发展，这些能力与就业技能和充分参与社会有关。我们的目标不是评估整个DDU-GKY计划，而是确定支持其成功的因素，同时制定更广泛的“成功”定义，纳入社会包容和就业能力或软技能获得和个人效能的衡量标准，以便在工作场所和更广泛的社会中使用这些技能。这项研究还旨在确定一些有资格接受培训的群体特别不可能注册参加该计划的原因，并将这些群体获得的技能与那些参加过培训的群体进行比较。该项目将采取创新的当地能力建设方法，并让英国研究团队与当地学者和培训机构合作，开发定量和定性的工具。将使用纵向调查和对方案参与者和符合条件的非参与者控制组的访谈，以及对比哈尔邦和恰尔肯德邦两个不同邦的培训提供者和雇主的访谈。

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.