Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) and National Skill Development and Corporation (NSDC) organised a G20 webinar on March 2nd, 2023, on the topic, “Mega Trends shaping future of work” as a push to the upcoming third education working group meeting, which is scheduled to take place in Bhubaneswar from April 24 to 27 2023.
A distinguished panel, including Ms. El Iza Mohamedou, Head, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Centre for Skills, Shri Atul Kumar Tiwari, Secretary, MSDE, and Shri Krishna Kumar Dwivedi, Joint Secretary, MSDE, attended the webinar.
This webinar is the first of many events lead up to the Education Working Group Meeting (EWG) in Bhubaneswar.
Three sessions were held for the discussion and deliberation:
- Demographic and Social Trends
- Environmental Trends
- Technology Trends
While the second and third sessions focused on the asymmetric impact of skills within and across countries, employment in light of the climate crisis, the advent of jobs in green energy, and supporting vulnerable sectors, the first session’s speakers emphasised increasing women participation in the workforce, leveraging the benefits of a multi-generational workforce, and the potential of the silver economy.
The experts also discussed tech-enabled job forms like the gig economy and crowd-working platforms as well as the man-machine interface, skill shifts, evaluating the present workforce’s readiness, and firm adaptation.
Ms. Kanika Mahajan, Assistant Professor of Economics, Ashoka University, and Mr. Anjal Prakash, Research Director and Adjunct Professor, ISB’s Bharti School of Public Policy, moderated the three thematic sessions.
The sessions saw participation of eminent speakers like Amit Nirmal, DDG, DGE, MoLE; Narayanan Ramaswamy, Partner KPMG; Neeraj Sagar, Founder, Founder, Wisdom Circle; Sreedhari Desai, Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior & Crist W. Blackwell Scholar, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School; Dr. NS Rajan, Former CEO – IDFC Foundation, Former Group CHRO – Tata Sons and earlier Global Leader – People Advisory – EY; Bhupinder Singh Bhalla, Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (TBC); Prof. Sumit Aggarwal, Professor of Finance, Economics, and Real Estate, National University of Singapore; Prof. Giovanni Marin, Associate Professor at Università degli Studi di Urbino Carlo Bo, Leader of the UNIURB research unit, SEEDS; Trishaljit Sethi, Director General, Directorate General of Training; Prof. Phanish Puranam, The Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Strategy and Organisation Design, INSEAD; Prof. Deepa Mani, Deputy Dean, Executive Education and Digital Learning and Professor of Information Systems, Indian School of Business.
Addressing the gathering, Shri Atul Kumar Tiwari, Secretary, MSDE, stated, “The recent trends for global recovery and sustainable development have extensively emphasised accelerating the development of digital infrastructure, facilitating digital transformation, encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship, promoting responsible use of Artificial Intelligence, and the need for reskilling and upskilling the future workforce. In order to enable the existing education systems, including foundational, higher education, and technical and vocational education training (TVET), to provide pathways and opportunities for lifelong learning, coordinated efforts must be made at the global level. The youth and the existing workforce will acquire the skills they need to adapt to the new requirements of future employment. We seek to learn and deliberate on the best practices and policy interventions implemented by G20 countries to improve their education and skilling ecosystems through this webinar and upcoming series of events.”
Ms. El Iza Mohamedou, Head, OECD Centre for Skills, stated, “During the webinar that mega trends are shaping the future of work in new ways. The concept of lifelong learning is now more important than ever because of this, which has made us realise that the skills needed in the labour market will continue to change. In order to stay ahead of these changes, we must continuously upskill and reskill. Governments must support a skill-based culture during this shift and recognize all skills, including those acquired through informal learning. In order to ensure equal access to opportunities and skilling so that no one is left behind, the stakeholders must also create a strong collaborative ecosystem with a focus on holistic integration of research and development, academia, employee organisations, and policies.”
The meeting focused on identifying policies and practices across various themes for building institutions’ capacities to strengthen foundational literacy and numeracy through a skill-based approach, promoting lifelong learning, and creating a digital skill ecosystem for creating a long-lasting, equitable, and inclusive world of work. The webinar also provided a forum for discussion to be directed at exchanging best practices and strategic interventions for enhancing education and developing effective training programs to prepare our workforce for the future.
The webinar concluded with a plenary session in which Shri Atul Kumar Tiwari, Secretary, MSDE, and Shri Krishna Kumar Dwivedi, Joint Secretary, MSDE, addressed the audience.
Also read: MSDE seminar on building capacities through digital skill training among SCO partner nations https://nationalskillsnetwork.in/msde-seminar-on-building-capacities-through-digital-skill-training-among-sco-partner-nations/
The next webinar will focus on the steps and policy measures that need to be taken to ingrain foundational skills and lifelong learning capacity in the workforce in light of the impact of the emerging trends, whereas this one focused on identifying the trends that are shaping the future of work.
The G20 summit aims to bring together global stakeholders from academia, government, and industry to contextualise the emerging future of work in order to prioritise reforms, re-imagine learning, and redefine talent.
