By Sourabh Anand
NEW DELHI (India CSR): India’s journey toward becoming a Viksit Bharat will be shaped by the strength of its people.Our most defining advantage is a young population with the potential to power innovation, productivity, and resilient economic growth. With one of the world’s youngest workforces—over 60% in the 18-25 age group alone, India has a rare demographic advantage. But the value of this demographic strength does not lie in its size alone;it lies in how effectively we equip young people for meaningful, dignified work.
At a time when many global economies are aging, India’s youth represent both promise and responsibility. While job creation continues to be a structural challenge, the more immediate task before us is to ensure that young people are equipped with the right skills, confidence, and exposure to access and thrive in the opportunities that do exist.
The Demographic Dividend: A Double-Edged Sword
Many young people complete school or college without the practical skills, industry understanding, or career guidance that can help them navigate the world of work. This gap is particularly visible among first-generation learners and youth from underserved regions, who often lack access to mentors, professional networks, and work experience. The result is a familiar paradox: industries are searching for skilled talent, whilemany young Indians struggle to secure meaningful employment.
Addressing this disconnect is essential for ensuring that India’s demographic advantage becomes a sustained growth multiplierwhere every young person is not just employable but empowered to shape the nation’s future.This requires a joint effort across multiple stakeholders: academia, industry, and philanthropy, alongside government initiatives.
Revamping Education to Make Vocational Training Aspirational
Preparing young people for employment calls for a shift in how we think about learning. For decades, academic education has taken precedence over skill-building, exposure, and practical experience. To strengthen employability, we need to make skill-based and vocational learning aspirational, well-integrated, and visible as a meaningful pathway to career growth. Integrating vocational courses early in the school curriculum, embedding internships and apprenticeships in general degree programs, and promoting skill-based learning within higher education can significantly uplift employability. The National Education Policy 2020 provides a strong framework for this transformation,emphasising flexibility, vocational integration, and teacher capacity building.The next step is sustained execution – across schools, colleges, and community-based learning environments – so that students graduate not just academically qualified, but workplace-ready.
Industry as a Co-Creator of Employability
Industry also plays a critical role in shaping employability. When companies open structured pathways such as internships, apprenticeships, job shadowing, and live projects, students gain the chance to experience professional environments first-hand. These experiences help young people build not only technical awareness but also confidence, teamwork, communication skills, and workplace orientation, qualities that are central to long-term career success.
Global examples, such as Germany’s widely respected dual education system that combines classroom learning with on-the-job training, demonstrate how strong partnerships between industry and academia can create a steady pipeline of skilled, job-ready talent. India can draw from such models to deepen collaboration and adapt them to local contexts.At the same time, industry insights can strengthen curricula and training programs, ensuring that skill development keeps pace with the rapid shifts brought on by digitization, automation, sustainability transitions, and new forms of work. By acting as co-creators of talent rather than end-point recruiters, industries can help ensure that the future workforce is adaptable and resilient, not just qualified.
Philanthropy as the Innovation Catalyst
Philanthropic organisations can play an important role in addressing one of India’s most urgent employability challenges, bridging the gap between skilling efforts and actual job opportunities. While millions of youth are being trained each year, many still struggle to find employment because their skills often do not align with industry demand. Philanthropy can help close this gap by convening ecosystem players, MSMEs that generate a majority of jobs, training institutions, academia, and policymakers, to better map demand trends and build responsive skilling ecosystems.
By piloting and institutionalising new models that integrate work-based learning into vocational education, alongside supporting research on future skill requirements, philanthropic initiatives can help design scalable, data-driven solutions. In doing so, they serve as a connective force linking communities, educators, and employers to ensure that India’s skilling narrative evolves from training for training’s sake to training for purposeful employment.
The Broader Impact on India’s Growth Story
Investing in youth employability is, therefore, not just a social commitment;it is a strategic economic priority. A workforce that is prepared, confident, and future-ready drives productivity, sparks innovation, and expands participation in the economy. Economic growth becomes more inclusive, communities become more resilient, and progress becomes more widely shared.It creates a future where India’s demographic edge becomes its defining advantage.
The journey toward Viksit Bharat cannot be driven by any one institution or sector. It requires government, academia, industry, and philanthropy to work together to create learning and employment ecosystems that are accessible, relevant, and future-facing. When employability is treated as a shared priority rather than a segmented responsibility, young people gain the skills, exposure, and confidence to participate fully in the economy. India’s growth story will ultimately be shaped by the choices and opportunities we extend to its youth today. Equipping them to contribute, with both capability and dignity, is among the most meaningful investments we can make as a nation.
About the Author
Sourabh Anand, Head, EY Foundation India.
(India CSR)
