Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Skills Development Corporation

Objective

To equip youth with industrial skills for employment to address the talent gap.

Overview and Main Activities

IL&FS Skills Development Corporation is a network of skills schools in India run as a joint venture between IL&FS and the National Skill Development Corporation. It operates 44 Institute of Skills (as hubs) and 134 Skills Schools (as spokes) in 26 states. IL&FS partners with more than 1,000 employers to ensure trainees have a guaranteed job after their graduation.

IL&FS Skills Development Corporation rests on three intervention areas:

1. Job placements for trainees: IL&FS Skills secures commitments from its more than 1,000 partner companies to provide job placements for trainees. Student enrolment is tied to the number of job commitments to guarantee a job placement after graduation. This step is undertaken to assess demand and required relevant skill sets.
2. Mobilizing youth: IL&FS Skills works with local governments and nongovernmental organizations to enrol young people in training courses. It holds informational workshops across the country, including rural villages, to explain to young people the benefits of the training and the career prospects they can expect afterward.
3. Training courses: Schools and centres offer courses in 74 disciplines, including textiles, welding, hospitality and retail. Course duration ranges from one to three months. The curriculum is created in cooperation with industry partners to cater to industry demand and emphasizes learning by doing and delivered in a blended learning mode comprising of 60% domain training and the rest of life skills, English and IT skills. Many classes are held in simulated workplaces, such as a sewing factories (complete with shift sirens) or a hotel lobby, to help students familiarize themselves with what might be entirely new environments. All training instructors have five years of relevant industry experience.

To ensure training courses are delivered consistently across all schools and centres, IL&FS Skills has created a proprietary technology, K-Yan – a combination of projector and computer that uses multimedia forms to deliver training in English and nine regional languages. Students can view the course material repeatedly and learn at their own speed.

Success Factors and Challenges

Most critical success factors:

• End-to-end support; programme helps students through mobilization, guaranteed job placement and post-graduation support and evaluation
• Low cost model; technology platform lowers cost of delivery
• Industry relevant curriculum co-developed with industry employer partners
• Interactive training delivery mechanism that leverages technology, multimedia and simulations, allowing students to learn at their own pace, reducing variability of trainers,and simulating a real work experience

Main challenges:

• Maintaining quality and impact as initiative scales up
• Industries inability to differentiate between trained and untrained workers while recruiting
• Inability of youth from below poverty line to pay and absence of coherent and long term government policy to support the funding of such beneficiaries

Replicability and Scalability

How easily could other organizations implement this initiative?
Difficult: A profound knowledge of internal labour markets is helpful to steer, monitor and control such an initiative.

How easily can this initiative be expanded to include a larger number of participants?
Easy: The technology platform enables students to learn at their own pace and requires minimal time from trainers, Setup of schools and skills centres allows for easy expansion.

About the Organization

Website: www.mckinsey.com
Sector: Professional Services
Size (number of employees): 10,000 – 50,000
Headquarters: New York, United States