The dream of an employable India with its burgeoning youth population equipped with quality education and skills can become a reality by leveraging the reach of digital learning into the most inaccessible corners of the country.

Digital skilling has gained increased importance in view of the challenges posed by COVID-19 pandemic. Rapid advancements in digital technologies are redefining the businesses globally. In the current business environment, digital is not only about technology, it also encapsulates how work is done and how data lies at the core of decision-making. As a result, the impact is being felt profoundly on the shaping of talent required in this environment. While many jobs are changing and going away, many more are emerging which is a new phenomenon.   

Why digital skilling?  

Digital skilling has become an integral part of IT companies’ overall business strategy. Companies are leveraging multiple learning channels and are increasingly focusing on hands-on, project-based training and social learning for digital skilling. The outreach of educational programs is improving with the digitalization of education. Digital education is providing new opportunities to both teachers and students to teach and learn and ensuring greater participation in the overall learning process. However, the need of the hour in present challenging times is to continuously move the learning curve of digital skilling and ensure seamless training on both domain and as well as soft skills required by the industry. 

Digital skilling impacts both the learner, as well as the industry hence standardization of content, is important. For the learner, digital solutions play a big role in standardizing content, pedagogy and delivery models ensuring quality learning with scale. From the  

Industry perspective, as the Industry 4.0 gains momentum, it is evident that most of the job roles visible today will either transform or give way to new job roles in almost all key domains namely Healthcare, Retail, ITES, Hospitality, Textiles, BFSI etc.  

Digital Skilling in India  

Digital solutions in skilling for learners in India is rapidly gaining momentum for both domains as well as soft skills. Delivery of soft skill competencies is already moving towards the digital mode with the help of short concept audio-videos, real-life scenario-based AI solutions, secondary research projects and smart gamified solutions. The movement on the domain side is driven by simulations using AR/VR solutions to replace the lab experience. Domains like healthcare is moving towards remote learning and gaining hands-on knowledge through internships in hospitals. 

While both the learner and academia are embracing the digital solutions currently more as a fix or a temporary solution for the present times, the fear is that we will get back to the same old delivery model once the pandemic ends. The need, therefore, is to take the best learnings forward and add them to the existing learning models. 

Challenges in digital skilling  

In India, the state of education is dismal, especially in rural areas. Currently, the sector has been battling with grave challenges such as shortage of teachers, outdated teaching methods, insufficient teaching resources and inadequate student-teacher ratio. Digital learning in India is going to be the key face of future education in the country.   

Digital Skilling - Way forward  

With the internet becoming affordable and accessible, going ahead, there will be greater convergence of digital and traditional teaching-learning mediums.   

The government is also taking steps to come up with policies that will help boost digital skilling in the country. To help facilitate the use of innovative educational tools, it is making efforts to improve the quality of digital infrastructure across the country.   

In the days to come, digital skilling like all other professions will see visible changes in the way Universities and Colleges provide education. Digital Technology is helping to overcome all language barriers. Now learning material can be made available digitally in regional languages as well.  

Indian youth is preparing itself to the learning needs and challenges, living in a globalized economy. The education sector in the country is bound to re-adjust itself profoundly, with the digital transformation both in terms of how we learn and what we learn. eLearning design will now transition from being information-driven to being experiential.  

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article above are those of the authors' and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of this publishing house