India’s WorldSkills Medals: Patient Investment in Skill Development

13 Oct 2026

Tags: Social Justice   Social Services   Human resources issues

Source: The Hindu

Context: At the 48th WorldSkills Competition, held in Shanghai, China, in September 2026, India secured 10th position, winning six silver medals and 20 Medallions for Excellence (26 recognitions in total), its best-ever performance and first entry into the global top 10.

WorldSkills Competition: Key Features

• Nature: Held every two years, WorldSkills is often described as the Olympics of skills, where young people demonstrate practical and technical competencies across trades and emerging technologies.
• Participation: More than 1,400 competitors from around 70 countries and regions compete in disciplines ranging from welding and electrical wiring to robotics and cybersecurity.
• Significance: It provides international recognition to vocational skills and helps challenge the perception that skill-based careers are inferior to conventional academic pathways.

India’s Performance at WorldSkills

• Improving trajectory: India ranked 39th in 2011, 19th in 2017 and 13th in both 2019 and 2024, when its best results included four bronze medals; in 2026, it rose to 10th with six silver medals.
• Largest-ever participation: India fielded its largest team of 70 competitors across 63 skills, marking a shift from bronze-level achievements towards silver medals.
• First-time disciplines: India competed in 11 skills for the first time and secured three silver medals in these categories.

Indian medal winners:

• Silver medals: Mohammed Salam — Dental Prosthetics; Kovid Gangrade — Digital Interactive Media Design; Saniya Joshi — Retail Sales; Smriti Nambiar — Bakery; Parth Vohra — Industrial Design Technology; Mehrunissa Begum — Logistics and Freight Forwarding.
• Medallions for Excellence: Kaif Khan — Car Painting; Md. Seraj — Automobile Technology; Pavan Bhadravati Suresha — Additive Manufacturing; Mallinath and Suhan Mascarenhas — Industry 4.0; Abhishek Somanna Shignalli and Vinay Muttayya Hiremath — Robot Systems Integration.

Stories Behind the Success

• Grassroots talent development: Kaif Khan of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, learnt car painting while working at a private automobile workshop after Class 10, progressed through State, regional and national IndiaSkills competitions, trained with Maruti Suzuki and Axalta, and gained exposure in Germany and Denmark before winning a Medallion for Excellence.
• New technical capabilities: Mohammed Salam of Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu, won silver in dental prosthetics, a discipline requiring precision in producing dental crowns and bridges, in which India had not previously competed.
• Key lesson: These achievements reflect the importance of identifying talent, providing structured training, offering industry exposure and creating opportunities for fair international competition.

IndiaSkills: Identifying and Training Talent

• Large-scale selection: More than 3.65 lakh candidates registered for IndiaSkills across 63 skills; five regional competitions narrowed the field to around 650 national finalists at Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, from whom 70 competitors were selected for WorldSkills.
• Institutional coordination: The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), State governments and industry experts collaborated to identify, train and prepare competitors.
• Whole-of-government approach: The progression from district-level talent to international competition demonstrates the importance of coordinated efforts among government institutions, States and industry.

Skill-Ex: Investing in Human Capital

• Concept:Skill-Ex refers to deliberate investment in developing the skills of people who design, operate and maintain productive assets, complementing conventional investment in physical infrastructure.
• Capex, Opex and Skill-Ex: Capital expenditure (Capex) creates assets such as factories and infrastructure; operational expenditure (Opex) keeps them running; Skill-Ex develops the skilled workforce needed to use these assets productively.
• PM-SETU scheme: The Pradhan Mantri Skilling and Employability Transformation through Upgraded ITIs (PM-SETU) scheme, with an outlay of ₹60,000 crore, aims to upgrade 1,000 government Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) into 200 hubs and 800 spokes, with industry partners managing the clusters.
• Role of industry: Employers need to invest in workforce training alongside physical infrastructure and operating costs, ensuring that industrial expansion translates into higher productivity and employability.

Significance for India

• Changing social attitudes: International recognition can help establish vocational and technical careers as equally respectable alternatives to conventional academic pathways.
• Economic productivity: Skilled workers improve the utilisation of factories, infrastructure and technology, strengthening manufacturing competitiveness.
• Demographic dividend: Equipping young people with industry-relevant skills can improve employability and help India convert its large working-age population into an economic advantage.
• Emerging technologies: Skills in robotics, cybersecurity, additive manufacturing and Industry 4.0 are increasingly important for advanced manufacturing and digital transformation.
• Global positioning: Sustained investment in vocational education can strengthen India's role in global value chains and support its ambition to become a global skills hub.

Way Forward

• Integrate industry with training: Align ITI curricula, apprenticeships and practical training with changing industrial requirements.
• Improve social recognition: Give vocational qualifications and skilled professions recognition comparable to conventional degrees.
• Expand access: Identify talent from districts and underserved communities and provide access to advanced equipment, expert trainers and international exposure.
• Measure outcomes: Assess skilling programmes through employment, wages, productivity and industry participation, rather than enrolment alone.