With a 40 per cent population under the age of 20, South Asia is one of the youngest populations in the world. Its capacity to rise to the challenge of fulfilling its economic growth potential will be contingent on how swiftly the South Asian economies can address their skill gaps and take appropriate measures to upskill their youth.

British Council’s report explores the importance of developing skills across agriculture, manufacturing and services with importance on soft skills development to meet the skills demand in the industrial sectors in South Asia.

Besides partnerships across business, skills development efforts in South Asia will also require development of financial and learning solutions as well as enhancing technical vocational education and training (TVET) to prepare workplace-ready graduates.

The report looks at two major approaches in addressing the skills gap in South Asia, the first being exploiting the wealth of a swelling youth population through improved education systems which will address the skills and employability issues in line with global competition to ensure raised pay scales and reduced brain drain.
The other approach looks at an intense up-skilling of the 70% of South Asia’s current workforce who are characterised as informal, unorganised and unskilled.

To know more about South Asia’s present skills landscape and solutions based on expert interviews, read the report here.