BENGALURU: While the unemployment rate in the country is alarming with the recently released ‘India Employment Report 2024’ revealing that nearly 83% of the unemployed workforce comprises youth, Bengaluru-based SGBS Unnati Foundation (SUF), an NGO, is actively working to bridge this learning gap and empower the youth to be job-ready and encourage pursuing higher education. Unnati’s training programme is primarily focused on rural areas and it has more than 50% participation from women.
The employment report highlighted that the percentage of unemployed youth with secondary education or above rose from 35.2% in 2000 to 65.7% in 2022 and though enrollment in higher education in India is rising, the quality of education continues to remain a concern. The majority of the youth trained are from the final year of graduation in government colleges.
So far, the NGO has trained 1 lakh youth across 12 states in this fiscal year 2023-24 and aims to make a difference in the lives of 1 million youth in the country. Their UNXT programme offers a comprehensive approach to youth empowerment with a specific focus on skills development. It consists of 165 hours of classroom training, with 90 hours of classroom learning, covering essential subjects such as values, English communication, and life skills. This will help address the learning deficit at school levels and the quality of education provided by learning institutions that are inadequate in the job market.
Not just classroom learning, participants are also engaged in over 75 hours of self-directed learning through a mobile app. These sessions are conducted in small batches of 35-40 students, each session lasts three hours outside regular college hours, within government college premises, and is offered free of charge.
Ramesh Swamy, Director, SGBS Unnati Foundation, said, “This year has been very special for Unnati as we became the first NGO to be listed on the Social Stock Exchange. In this fiscal year alone, we have achieved the significant milestone of training 1,00,000 youth. The speciality of this 1 lakh has been the classroom model where the ChangeMakers (trainers) have actually touched the lives of these youth. This achievement marks a significant step forward in empowering individuals from marginalised communities, providing them with the skills and confidence needed to secure gainful employment and stand tall in society.”