The case of apprentices: Why apprenticeship has not taken off in India

A recent report by the ILO on the employment situation in India says the country remains poised to reap its demographic dividend for at least another decade

It was a year ago that Sonu, 20, started working as a ‘helper’ in a metal forging unit in Mayapuri, a greasy industrial pocket in West Delhi. Housing hundreds of small and medium light-metal factories, scrap shops, and automobile service stations, Mayapuri helps sustain the livelihoods of half a million people, most of them migrants and low on skill.

This is Sonu’s first paid employment after he completed his schooling two years ago. It requires him to run machines that clean, harden, or anneal metals (annealing is a kind of heat treatment).
 

“I had no prior training and one of my