Strengthening Service Sector : Enhancing Knowledge Economy and Overcoming Scarcity of Skills.

Prof. Dr. Mala Tandon

Volume : VIII, Issue : V, May - 2019

Strengthening Service Sector : Enhancing Knowledge Economy and Overcoming Scarcity of Skills.

Prof. Dr. Mala Tandon

Abstract :

Services play an important role in the economies of developed as well as developing countries. The service sector comprises of Education and Research, Health and Medical, Hotels and Restaurants, Banking, Storage, Electricity, Trade, Transport, Communication, Real Estate Insurance , Business and many other services. Out of all these, the health and education services have been the most important in the Indian Economy. In countries which have huge population, there is an immense potential for services sector. A strong and well organized education sector helps in building a Knowledge Economy. Developing the services sector can ensure transformation of manpower into an asset, instead of a liability or burden, through proper utilization. This would generate high income for the country/ nation as a whole. Scarcity in the service sector is majorly of skills. Surplus of manpower without requisite skills as per the demands of the service sector results in scarcity in this sector. In order to strengthen the service sector it is extremely important to work in the area of enhancement of the knowledge economy, which when enhanced would result in dealing effectively with the powerful problem of scarcity in terms of skills which leads us to make unwelcome choices. The strength of any economy can be determined through the level of education and training of the workforce. In order to enhance knowledge economy certain basic requirements have to be met. The gateway to Social as well as Economic stability, Prosperity and happiness can only be reached by building clusters of excellence in terms of performance and skills. This can be done by being innovative and creating a learning environment, attracting and retaining talent and building and enhancing leadership competencies. What is required for raising standard is to ensure development and creation of appropriate mindsets to become globally competent but at the same time stay rooted locally so that demand at the global level is enhanced while raising the quality of performance and adding to productivity and output at the local level. For this again, the right attitude is required and skills need be sharpened in all the three domains i.e. Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral with a motivational mindset. By enhancing the knowledge based economy, we hope to achieve a workforce which is innovative, globally competent and with effective entrepreneurial qualities driven by an educational system which believes in strengthening performance and attitudes among diverse group of stakeholders who are the stirrers of our wheel of change and who need to be influenced in order to achieve economic prosperity, social stability and overall happiness. These stakeholders being–students, teachers, peers, parents, and community at large. Efforts have been made to focus on enhancing Knowledge Economy and Skill development to strengthen the service sector in view of the National Skill development Mission and Global requirements.