CANBERRA: India-Australia partnership aims to bridge skill gap for future employment

CANBERRA: To address the skill gap prevailing across the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and to meet the demands for India’s labour force requirement, the Australian Government, has collaborated with India to augment India’s literacy and skill education. Under this partnership, the Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade) is bringing together a 33-member future skills delegation providing Australian skilling capability across digital technologies, energy and infrastructure. The Future Skill Initiative (FSI) under the Australian government will assist Australian skills providers, Indian skilling institutions and corporates to identify collaboration models and partnerships for skills delivery.

Speaking to Education Times, on the sidelines of the Australia–India Skills Partnership Summit, organised jointly by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Philip Green, Australian High Commissioner to India highlighted to need to skill the Indian youth who can benefit both the countries. “The India Economic Strategy 2035 is an ambitious plan to transform Australia’s economic partnership with India by 2035. This has the potential to strengthen the resilience of the Australian economy and help realise India’s aspirations. India has a large number of young population, which is an asset. By 2025, India will have a fifth of the world’s working-age population. The Australia-India collaboration is based on imparting employment skills that both the countries would require shortly for the industry requirements,” says Green.  The skill knowledge will be imparted by industry experts to suit the market demand in India as well as in Australia.

Skill shortage

India will have the largest workforce by 2030. “With India having the largest tertiary age (18-22) population globally, there is demand for education and skilling in every sector. Here, research and development collaboration between the two nations will help transform the economies of both countries,” adds Green.  The two-day Summit held in New Delhi aims to strengthen the vocational education and training ecosystem in both countries. 

With India expected to provide 25% of the workforce to the world by 2030, Green says, “We have witnessed a rapidly evolving demand for experts in automation, digitisation and green skills. India will require 6 million green job experts in the coming years. We plan to address the skill shortage across the world by identifying the future jobs in the fields that face manpower shortages.”

Besides skilling the workforce, the collaboration will see the sharing of resources. “Under this, India and Australia have identified six spheres where the job demand will be higher.  We have much to learn from India, while Australia has a mature and globally competitive skill sector. The skilling of the workforce is our primary focus.” 

“Australian skill training is globally competitive as it is at par with the industry standards. Besides this Australia has the highest number of foreign students from India. This is also a reason why Australia is interested in skilling Indian students,” adds Green.

The Australian skills training providers have expertise in renewable energy such as electric vehicles (EV), agri-tech, sustainable farming, automotive and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain, EdTech, digital, future technologies, medicine and healthcare, and engineering among others.

“There is huge demand for experts skilled in digital sector. The Deakin University at the GIFT City Campus, is offering courses on Cyber security, a skill where we do not have enough experts till now. This will help bridge the skill gap,” Green added.

Vocational Education and Training (VET)

Australia’s skills training system operates across schools, vocational education and training (VET), and higher education sectors.  As per reports, Australia is facing several challenges, including a skill shortage, due to issues such as the ageing population and declining productivity growth. The partnership will address skill gaps in 22 nations.

Emphasising that the Australia-India Industry Skills Partnership Summit and Business Program will help in forging meaningful partnerships, Catherine Gallagher, minister-commercial and head of Austrade, South Asia, says, “Australia has a reputation for world-class vocational education and skills training. This delegation comes at a time when Australia and India are more strategically and economically aligned than ever before. This delegation will connect Australian vocational education and training providers with Indian learners and industry to help meet India’s critical and emerging labour force requirements”.

VET focuses on real-world skills to prepare people for various jobs, including in a trade or craft. While university tends to teach a broad range of theories, VET focuses on specific skills for a particular workplace, meaning there is a range of unique and interesting courses for students to choose from.

VET is for students who wish to enter the workforce early. Students graduate from VET faster than from university as many VET qualifications can take from six months to two years full-time to complete, whereas it takes three years at a minimum to complete a degree. This means international students in Australia can enter the workforce more quickly and start earning a salary if they complete VET.

The delegates, part of Australian Government’s Australia–India Future Skills Initiative (FSI), will visit New Delhi, Pune and Chennai to build two-way market literacy and skills partnership momentum, while developing business ties or partnerships between Australian and Indian institutions, universities and corporates.