Every migrating worker from India should possess a valid, verifiable skill certification aligned to the requirements of other countries that would help reduce rejection risk, strengthen employers’ confidence and enhance India’s reputation as a quality-assured workforce provider, Debdeep De, Head of Research, National Skill Development Corporation said on Monday.

Speaking at a discussion on international skilled mobility and migration organised by Policy & Development Advisory Group and International Institute of Migration and Development (IIMAD), De also said there could be a digital card-like ‘skill passport’ which would include verified credentials.

Listing core issues as different competency expectations by jurisdictions, varying assessment standards across countries and lack of integrated labour market intelligence, De said joint skill assessments can be helpful. “For example, with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, there is a skill verification program where there’s joint assessment and the assessor is from the destination country. We just comply with the requirements,” he said.

At a time when the country is positioned with an expanding working-age population while developed nations face demographic contraction, and India has signed migration and mobility agreements with several nations including France, UK, Germany, Austria, Australia, Italy, Denmark, the need of the hour is to bridge that gap with skilled workforce, experts said.

Navonil Das, Lead, International Partnerships in Skills, Confederation Of Indian Industry, suggested that there should be finishing schools in India, where specific targeted courses could be taught. Say, the German automobile industry needs a very specific skill, then a top-up course could be taught in these finishing schools along with the required language.

There is a huge need for skilled workers in other countries in sectors of agriculture, forestry, butchering, seafood processing and deep tech like AI, he said adding that training for the course as well as the foreign language could be helpful for such workers. “…I can see the students these days are picking up Spanish, German, French. So that kind of policy should be there so that more and more students should learn these languages,” he said.