As an industry we have an obligation to serve the under-privileged and give people a respectful and meaningful livelihood. The timing is perfect because there is commitment from the Government, funding to support the skill development activities, and the will from various stakeholders to do what they are best at!
The Healthcare Sector Skill Council (HSSC) has committed to skill 4.8 million people in a phased manner over the next decade in the healthcare space. A robust plan to skill healthcare professionals in the allied healthcare space has been charted out with careful planning being put in place. This will be further implemented into action making in-roads into occupational mapping, in the process developing a systematic documentation of industry occupations/job roles in the allied healthcare sector.
Narayana Health has partnered with Wadhwani Foundations to set the ball rolling in skilling people on-ground in the healthcare space. This sector in India is suffering with overworked professions as there is a severe dearth of staff. Wadhwani Foundations has set up e-modules that are deploying repeatable, modular self-driven and peer-driven lessons to train staff and has skilled 1,500 nurses and will keep doing so. This can be used across India to scale up and get this workforce to be competent in the healthcare space.
However, it is imperative that all stakeholders (i.e. Healthcare industry, NGO`s, Skill development ministry, training providers and the regulatory bodies) recognize the importance of collaborating our efforts so that we can collectively look at the challenges around skill development/ skill gap and turn it around into opportunities for the most deprived individuals of our society.
Innovation and new ways of working, alongside skill development is core in realizing the full potential of the human capita and therefore the demand-supply gap should be balanced properly – Only Train As Many Candidates and to a High Standard As defined by the Industry Requirements.
Expert View: Dr. Rakesh Verma, Head-Learning & Development, Narayana Health speaks on World Youth Skills Day, 2015.