A new survey by TeamLease EdTech, a learning solutions company, reveals that nearly 70 per cent of over 100 Indian companies intend to increase their corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending in the new fiscal year, with a focus on improving skilling and education. The survey, titled Aligning Education and Skilling in the CSR Agenda, suggests that most of these companies spread across India will allocate more funds for training people in vocational and other skills to check the increasing problem of unemployability.
The survey reveals that the education and skilling cohorts will be a key impact area, with India Inc being keen on dedicating a major chunk of their funds towards imparting employability skills to school or college dropouts (22.8 per cent), women (20.4 per cent), and people with disabilities (18 per cent).
“India does not have a job crisis, rather a skill crisis – we don’t have enough employable talent to cater to the jobs that are there,” Shantanu Rooj, the founder and CEO of TeamLease EdTech, revealed. Multiple measures have been taken to improve our education, but it is yet to solve the impending skill gap. We also face a high dropout crisis in higher education, further impacting employability. It is welcoming to see that corporates are looking at further increasing their spends in education/skilling - close to two-third of the respondents are planning to invest further. The investments coupled with active participation will help in addressing the gaps and enable our youth to beat the root cause of poverty- unemployment.”
The survey also shows that 95.83 per cent of companies direct their CSR funds towards key areas like education, vocational skilling and livelihood improvement. This is followed by 50 per cent of companies dedicating funds towards health, eradicating hunger, poverty and malnutrition, safe drinking water, and sanitation. Around 45.83 per cent funds are also given towards gender equality, women empowerment, old age homes and care, etc. The survey found that companies that dedicate funds towards multiple areas usually have a portion perpetually dedicated towards education and skilling. This was proved by the fact that 46 per cent of the companies revealed that they allocate more than half of their CSR funds on skilling and education. With 85 per cent of companies already aligning their CSR initiatives to take the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic into account, the outlook for 2022 looks better than previous years.
*Image used for representative purpose.