Category Archives: Blog

Innovative CSR School Interventions in India by SkillSonics to Make Learning Better

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SkillSonics India is an organization with expertise in delivering courses designed based on the internationally-acclaimed Swiss Vocational Education and Training model.

We have partnered with various companies and not-for-profit organizations over the years to carry out CSR school interventions in India targeted at school students, often hailing from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, to not only create awareness about various issues but also to augment the whole learning experience.

SkillSonics: Skilling Programs for Indian School Students

SkillSonics collaborates with corporate entities and relevant non-profits to empower schools with developing and implementing a robust co-curricular program within their academic syllabus. The goal is to enhance the learning experience by fostering critical thinking skills and promoting innovative education among Indian school students.

SkillSonics’ Approach towards Education and CSR Partnerships

At SkillSonics, we approach our CSR initiatives in education at the school level by highlighting the following aspects:

  • Activity-Based Learning
  • Critical Thinking
  • Working with Real Technology
  • Sustainability & Green Education

SkillSonics also ensures the encouragement of critical thinking in schools in real time through the interactive nature of our courses and the inclusion of activities such as dramatic presentations, preparation of scientific models, video lectures, and so on.

Implementation of Alternative Pedagogical Approach

The inclusion of the Alternative Pedagogical Approach (a synthesis of Theater-in-Education, Multiple Intelligence, Parallel Thinking, and STEM) by SkillSonics in certain CSR school intervention projects has definitely further elevated the level of critical thinking exhibited by the students.

Key CSR School Interventions in India by SkillSonics

SkillSonics has partnered with Pramith Foundation to execute two key long-term CSR initiatives in education at the school level on behalf of reputed corporate entities such as Mahindra CIE Automotive Ltd. and GN Foundation (Switzerland).

Through the GEMS Program and the Abhigyan Programme SkillSonics has ensured far-reaching outcomes that benefit students of the focus schools over the course of multiple years. SkillSonics and Pramith Foundation have worked together to inculcate the ability of critical thinking, creating awareness, and developing long-term good habits among school-going children across multiple schools spread across India.

The GEMS Program: A CSR Initiative by Mahindra CIE Automotive Ltd.

The GEMS Program, a Green Education CSR initiative by Mahindra CIE Automotive Ltd., has been conducted by SkillSonics, in partnership with Pramith Foundation, to create awareness among the school children on aspects of sustainability, safety and health in schools located in Pune and Aurangabad.

The program caters to students between the 1st and 7th Grades and is spread into sessions to be conducted over the course of 3 years in the form of co-curricular activities

Overall Project Impact

  • The GEMS Program has been successfully conducted across 5 Schools in Pune and Aurangabad.
  • The Program has benefited 970 Students in 1 Year.

Project Intervention

  • 60 Hours program of Activity-based Learning on sustainability, Green Education, Safety and Health for students of grades 1-7.
  • Execution of the program in Government schools having minimal basic facilities and students from underprivileged backgrounds.
  • Developing positive and good long-term habits among students through Activity-Based Learning.
  • Contribution towards positive behavioral changes among students.

Project Outcome

  • The attendance of students improved due to activity-based learning.
  • The development of good healthy habits among the students.
  • Positive feedback from Parents about the transformation in their child.
  • Improvement in academic performance (enhancing physical & mental health resulting in better grades, skills, learning and self-confidence).
  • Improvement in time management skills (better understanding of prioritizing and management of tasks).
  • Learning new and useful skills (personality development, cultural values, leadership skills, teamwork).
  • Inculcation of a deeper sense of commitment to moral and essential ethical values.

Abhigyan: A School Enrichment Programme by GN Foundation (Switzerland)

The Abhigyan Programme has been conducted by SkillSonics in partnership with Pramith Foundation, on behalf of GN Foundation (Switzerland), to equip Vernacular-medium students and teens in Creative Thinking, STEM and Communication across schools through IIT Kharagpur in underdeveloped parts of West Bengal.

The program caters to vernacular-medium students between the 5th and 8th Grades and integrates a strong co-curricular schedule in their academic syllabi.

The Abhigyan Programme successfully harnesses the benefits of Activity-Based Learning and the Alternative Pedagogical Approach to not only create awareness among school children, especially those hailing from poor economic families, on aspects of STEM learning and other identified ‘Life Skills’, but also to augment the overall learning experience.

Overall Project Impact

  • STEM projects at vernacular-medium schools executed in collaboration with Pramith Foundation and IIT Kharagpur, West Bengal.
  • Benefitted 9000 students since 2016.

Project Intervention

  • Achieve holistic development of children to enhance their readiness to face the world and be confident human beings with a higher aspirational goal.
  • Year-long embedded programs or short-duration camps, ideally administered over the course of 5 years.
  • The students participate in STEM Projects and prepare small models of the project.
  • Inculcate: Asking WHY rather than WHAT.
  • Alternative Pedagogical approach, which is a synthesis of Theatre in Education, Multiple Intelligence, Parallel Thinking, and STEM.
  • Enhancement of communication, creativity, collaboration and appreciation of STEM through all the pedagogical tools mentioned, with measurable progress on each of the attributes at the year-end.

Project Outcome

  • Enhanced Creativity and Critical Thinking.
  • Enhanced Analytical Capability.
  • Cogent Communication Skills.
  • Better Team Collaboration.
  • Contributing to a richer ‘Demographic dividend’.
  • Positive Social dividend to the sponsor.
  • Upliftment of the vernacular medium students and helping them pursue fulfilling growth.

SkillSonics Aiding the Future of Indian Education through CSR

SkillSonics strives to encourage holistic development and continue transforming students and the youth into critical thinkers and well-rounded individuals through innovative education and skilling programs for Indian school students.

SkillSonics helps Women Break the Glass Ceiling from the Shop Floors of the Indian Manufacturing Industry

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The Indian Manufacturing Industry is one that has seen exponential growth over the past years, with a projected capacity to export 1 trillion USD worth of goods by 2030. This tremendous growth accounting for 17% of the nation’s GDP can be attributed to government policies, such as the National Manufacturing Policy, Production-Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI), increase in the foreign direct investment, robust domestic demand, and changes in global supply chain on the backdrop of Covid pandemic. Indian manufacturing is emerging as very competitive, reliable, and consistent industry on the world map, which is also expanding into new areas of aviation, defense, electronics, and precision manufacturing.

Fast paced technological advancements and culture of innovation are the driving factors for the surge in manufacturing activities however, availability of “Skilled Manpower” is emerging as one of the restraining factors or critical issue to keep up the momentum.

While analyzing the scenario about the availability of skilled manpower and industry requirements, we came across a stark reality of skewed gender ratio 7:1 of male to female employment in manufacturing industry (Based on a survey in 2021, the manufacturing industry of India employs a workforce of 27.3 million- of which, only 12% are women) Which is certainly not the case with Indian IT, Banking or any other IT/ITES service industry.

2023: A Tidal Influx of Women in the Indian Manufacturing Industry

One can really understand the low participation of the women in manufacturing due to hard physical work, shift workings, strenuous work environment, unavailability of basic hygiene infrastructure, family commitments, safety, and security issues in earlier days.

However, with new, clean, and neat greenfield production centers with latest technological advancements within a hygienic and safe work environment, we strongly feel the tides are shifting.

Now, the shopfloors have evolved, and the manufacturing industry is no longer a daunting environment for a woman to work in:

  • The work environment is safer, cleaner, and more conducive.
  • Manufacturing infrastructure is more advanced with less emphasis on heavy machinery operation.
  • Flexible locations and timings allow women to have a better work-life balance and focus on their families without compromising on work.
  • Women are open to relocation.
  • The gender gap in education has been significantly bridged.

Most corporates in India have recognized the importance of bringing women workforce into the fold of the Manufacturing space for the sector to further grow- a phenomenon which has very successful precedence in the growth of the Banking and IT sectors.

Special emphasis is given by corporates to mobilizing women for programs, keeping gender-specific issues in mind as they are more vulnerable to social exploitation, lack opportunities and have inherently low work participation rates.

This, however, brings us to a critical juncture- a vast untapped female workforce is vying to enter the skilled manufacturing industry, all of whom need to be technically trained to achieve their full potential. It is indeed a mammoth task, and that is exactly where SkillSonics comes into the picture.

SkillSonics: Leading Gender Diversity in Manufacturing

SkillSonics has been working in the skill-development sector for a decade now and have focused on training novices and upskilling the existing skilled workforce in various domains of the vast manufacturing industry.

In the past 3 years, SkillSonics has been championing the cause of gender diversity in manufacturing. SkillSonics has been leading a multitude of successful projects and drives that help more and more women enter the industry armed with the necessary technical skills and knowledge to thrive.

Our experience in recent ambitious projects has given us completely different understanding about today’s young girls with aspiration and dreams. Our learnings after sourcing, training, and deploying thousands of girls are the stories courage, aspirations, commitment to make it big in the traditionally male dominated arena.

Today’s young generation of girls are ready to travel, shift the base location, ready to work in the shifts and willing to be equal partners in growth of Indian manufacturing success stories.

Skill Development & Employability Programs for Women Promoting Aspirational Livelihoods

We strongly believe that more participation of the girls on the shop floor will really help in easing out the critical issue of availability of skilled manpower and bring in much more value in terms of discipline, enhance productivity and more importantly empowering the families.
We at SkillSonics are pleased to bring you snapshot of our work and our own success stories for the industry to practice, improvise and innovate in near future.

Snapshot: Brief Summary of Facts and Figures

Trained Numbers: 7500+ Girls trained in technical trades.
Education Level: 12th Pass/Diploma / B.E.
Domains: CNC/Mechatronics/Electrical/Electronic Assembly/Robotic Simulation in Manufacturing/ Building Information Modelling/Electric Vehicle /Solar PV system/ Machine Learning
Placements: With large multinational corporates
Geographical Coverage: Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa, Maharashtra.

SkillSonics: Leading Gender Diversity in Manufacturing

Intervention 1: Worked with a leading global conglomerate for their Precision Manufacturing Unit
Mandate: Source, Train & Deploy 2000+ Girls on shop floor in Assembly domain.

SkillSonics Role:

  • Impact Sourcing, Prescreening from varied geographies.
  • One-month -long extensive residential technical training program at 6-8 COE’s.
  • 99% Placements.

Highlights:

  • 18-year-old 12th pass girls are working on shop floor in large numbers.
  • Travelled 1000+ Kms from completely different geographies & now working in completely different environment of language, food habits & culture.

Intervention 2: Collaborated with a Food Processing retail giant, in their Spice factory in Guntur, to train and mobilize women with the necessary technical skills to dominate in the arena. Sourced, Trained & placed 120+ Candidates with Residential Training program.
Intervention 3: Trained and certified 100+ village women from Odisha as Plumbing Technicians to provide them with a sustainable livelihood.
Intervention 4: Source, trained and placed, 100+ women in CNC and Mechatronics at a manufacturing plant in Hosur, Tamil Nadu.
Intervention 5: Trained 5000+ women, across projects, including in the highly technical arenas of Precision Manufacturing, CNC, Robotic Simulation, Electric Vehicle manufacturing and so on.

Bridging the Gender Gap on the Shopfloors is a Core Mission of SkillSonics

SkillSonics strongly believes that the solution to the skill shortage being faced by the growing Indian manufacturing industry is to increase women’s participation in the sector and aims to conduct more projects and programs in 2023, and onwards, to bridge the gender gap in the Manufacturing Industry.

One of SkillSonics’ core missions in 2023 is to ensure more and more women enter the shopfloors equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge, and have their way paved towards aspirational careers with social and economic stability.

We at SkillSonics are fortunate to have industry partners to believe in our capabilities to deliver to their expectations on the road-less-traveled of Gender Equality in the Manufacturing shop floor.

Armed with challenging experience and critical learnings, Skillsonics is ready for more such projects from organizations which are exploring the ways and means of bringing more and more women workforce on the shop floor and create a highly productive work environment.