'India can take advantage of world worker shortage in 2020'

Nagpur, Oct 15 (UNI) India has a great opportunity coming its way when it will have a surplus 47 million individuals of working age when the developed countries would face a shortage of 50 million skilled workers in the year 2020, according to NIIT Group Chairman and Co-Founder Rajendra Singh Pawar.

Speaking on 'India's Emerging Knowledge Economy' here today, Mr Pawar said eight to ten developed countries would be short of workers in 2020 because they would have shrinking and ageing populations. India could take advantage of the situation if it taught the necessary skills to its own surplus 47 million individuals, he said.

India's huge population could then become an asset rather than a liability provided the country was prepared and it initiated the right steps, Mr Pawar said.

The country must come out of the mental block that a doctorate was better than a Class VIII pass, and must put in place an education system wherein an individual could exit at any point and learn a useful skill, he said.

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