Evaluation of the Indian National Employability Through Apprenticeship Program

To address critically high levels of youth unemployment and under-employment, as well as an apparent mismatch between youth’s skills versus those demanded by employers, the Indian Government has established a new Public-Private Partnership: the National Employability Through Apprenticeship Program (NETAP). NETAP aims to significantly increase the number of youth and firms participating in the apprenticeship system in India, with the ultimate goal of becoming the largest employability scheme in the country.  We have partnered with TeamLease Skills University (TLSU), the largest private sector service provider under NETAP. TLSU will recruit and match both firms and youth into NETAP apprenticeships. We propose to leverage this partnership to pursue two key research questions. First, we exploit an over-subscription design to study the returns to apprenticeship for young people. Second, we exploit a randomized information treatment  to examine the potential benefits that accrue to firms who have access to apprentices.