Enhancing Social Skills in Rural Adolescents through Skill Streaming

INTRODUCTION India's more than half of abundant human capital lives in villages even today. Development of these villages and its people is essential for the country's development and thus Mahatma Gandhi had always emphasized the role of rural development. Though the demographic dividend on possessing potential young and vibrant youth is as asset to India as rest of the world is ageing burdened with the lack of youth, the perennial unemployment or underemployment problem poses a major constraint for the social and economic development of such youth segment which also affects their psychological well-being adversely. The severity of such problem is so intense among the Rural Adolescents youth segment perhaps due to lack of exposure of Social Skills training. In spite of possessing the adequate hidden natural talents and technical skills training through formal education, the Rural Youth are more reluctant to take up any challenging and demanding tasks due to inhibitions, inbuilt shyness, and lack of self-leadership, intrapersonal and interpersonal emotional competency, communication skills etc. Equipping the potential of employability can be enriched by possessing both adequate levels of technical skills as well as social skills. But, unfortunately the rural adolescents are unable to compete with urban counterparts in employment scenario due to lack of exposure of adequate social skills training in which urban youth tend to have an advantage of possessing such skills through various exposures. The Government of India has taken many steps to eradicate unemployment especially for the youth in rural areas by implementing various schemes and plans for rendering subsistence economic relief such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojna (DDU-GKY), Aajeevika - National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM), Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), Enterprise and Skill Development, Assistance to Training Institutions (ATI) Scheme, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), UDAAN, Pravasi Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PKVY), Skilling India programme,