Data-Driven Skilling: Transforming Workforce Development in Odisha

India’s demographic transition presents both a challenge and an opportunity, with millions of young people entering the workforce annually. Skill development has emerged as a national priority to ensure gainful employment and inclusive growth. Odisha has made concerted efforts to address skilling challenges through investments in vocational training, technical education, and targeted initiatives like the Sudakshya Scheme for Skilling Women and the innovative Nano Unicorn Scheme, which provides seed funding and mentorship to young entrepreneurs to stimulate grassroots innovation and self-employment across Odisha.

DPIC, in close partnership with the Skill Development & Technical Education Department, is working to strengthen the state’s skilling infrastructure. This initiative focuses on data curation, analytics, and policy evaluation to enhance program effectiveness and outcomes. Key components include a qualitative assessment of the Sudakshya Scheme in skilling women, end-to-end skilling pipeline analysis using administrative data, development of an integrated skilling dashboard for real-time monitoring, and piloting of digital placement tracking mechanisms.

DPIC’s work draws on rich administrative data capturing nearly 600,000 individual records annually since 2018. These include application, admission, and course information of students entering higher secondary or vocational education from the Student Academic Management System (SAMS), exam performance and drop-out information from the State Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (SCTEVT) and placement outcomes collected through innovative digital surveys. This rich data ecosystem enables granular analysis of enrollment patterns, completion rates, and employment outcomes across different demographic groups and geographies.

Significant progress has been made in streamlining and analyzing these skilling-related datasets to inform policy decisions. DPIC has delivered analytical reports based on SAMS and SCTEVT data and completed field assessments for evaluating the Sudakshya Scheme’s effectiveness. A proof-of-concept integrated skilling dashboard is under development to support data-driven decision-making.  DPIC continues to work alongside government partners to translate these findings into robust, scalable strategies for improving skill development outcomes and creating pathways to meaningful employment for Odisha’s youth.