From skills to work and aspirations: An examination of Barefoot College and Prime Minister’s Skill Development Programmes in India

Skill development has been recognised as being crucial for economic and human development. However, having gained greater mobility in the recent past, there is an overall paucity of research, particularly in the global south. Moreover, the need for empirical research is more prominent in the case of India since it is committed to an ambitious national skill plan, including becoming the global skills capital. The Government of India (GoI) envisions to skill at least 300 million people by 2022 to harness the demographic dividend and bridge the current skills deficit. The skill policy aims to make skills training aspirational for all and promote lifelong learning. However, it is argued that the extant policy and practice is too narrow and technicist in approach. Moving beyond the predominant productivist paradigm, this thesis aims to examine the value of skills training for participants from the lens of human development. It locates skills development in the context of enabling people to fulfil their aspirations and achieve their capabilities. It does so by examining the case of Barefoot College (BFC), a renowned NGO that primarily trains women in the solar energy sector and Prime Minister’s Skill Development Programme (PMKVY), a flagship programme of GoI that aims to train youth across key industry sectors. The examination consisted of extensive data collection across four districts in the states of Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh. It included administering an innovative three-part questionnaire on a large sample of BFC and PMKVY trainees. Drawing upon the Capability Approach, an integrated Skills to Capabilities (S2C) framework is conceptualised. A detailed examination is undertaken to understand why people value skills training and what attributes of the programme are particularly valued. Further unpacking people’s aspirations for work specifically and life more generally, a view of their capabilities is derived. Next, the impact of the external environment, including the particular issue of gender inequality on people’s ability to pursue skills training and fulfil their goals is examined. Finally, people’s responses during training are compared with their actual position after training to ascertain the extent of achievements and thus determine the actual value of the training. Through this process, the concepts and causality in the S2C linkage are established. The thesis thus provides empirical evidence on the potential of skills training to co-create more equitable futures by nurturing people’s aspirations and expanding their freedom to achieve. It argues for a meaningfully inclusive conceptualisation of skills development, one that makes it truly aspirational for all. It provides an expanded view of the skills discourse, one that is not individualistic and considers lifelong processes and wider questions of preparation for the good life. It also shows the significance of introducing specific reforms in the skills development ecosystem, including improving training delivery and promoting a nurturing training environment