Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The Private Sector’s Commitment to the National Skill Development Programme is Shaky -Santosh Mehrotra

The Private Sector’s Commitment to the National Skill Development Programme is Shaky -Santosh Mehrotra

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Jun 2, 2016   modified Modified on Jun 2, 2016
-TheWire.in

The number of people needing technical and vocational education is at least 20 million per year, but the system is barely churning out 5 million per year.

In India until the middle of the 2000’s, employers were hardly interested in training within their own enterprises, let alone the system outside their enterprises. However, rapid GDP growth during those years led to a serious shortage of skilled staff. The government of India began to respond. For the first time in the history of India the 11th Five Year Plan (2007 to 2012) included a chapter on skill development, as did the 12th Plan. But the government-and-supply-driven system was not going to change overnight.

The private sector has remained resistant to contributing significantly to skill development, unless they are receiving funding from government. The number of private industrial training institutes (ITIs) did grow from under 2,000 in 2007 to 10,000 in 2014, but the Ministry of Labour – which was responsible for them – did not have the capacity to regulate them. Nor does the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship have the capacity to regulate for quality of training.

The government did create a National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) in 2010. But the so-called public-private partnership that NSDC was intended to be (with 49% shares being contributed by the government of India, and 51% shareholding from ASSOCHAM, CII and FICCI) fizzled out early. NSDC has remained almost entirely government-funded. There might have been rapid growth of NSDC-funded vocational training private providers (VTPs), but these VTPs offer, at best, courses that last four months (maximum length), which is hardly sufficient to equip fresh youngsters with skills that can make them employable.

Government and supply-driven systems of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) tend to fail, while demand and employer-driven systems are more likely to succeed. For half a century after independence, India hardly had a skill development (SD) system in place. Vocational education was practically non-existent until the mid 1980s at school level. The ITIs that came into existence in early 1960’s hardly grew in number until 2007 and there were barely 250,000 odd apprentices in the formal economy. Only 2% of the workforce had received formal vocational training by 2004-5. The formal TVET system was heavily driven by the government.

Barely 16% of Indian companies were providing enterprise-based training in 2007 according to World Bank data. Indian companies had been free riders on the education system. The shortage of skilled personnel has raised input costs for them, so that more of them are now providing in firm training (36% in 2014). However this is mainly confined to the larger firms that can afford to invest in the infrastructure and trained human resources required to provide such training. The smaller and medium enterprises are still struggling without skills.

Given the limited progress since 2007, the number needing TVET is, we have estimated, at least 20 million per year, but the system is barely churning out 5 million per year. The number to be trained is nowhere as high as the previous government policy believed (500 million between 2012 and 2022, as stated in the National Skills Policy 2009). Nor is the number even as high as 400 million (by 2025), as the current government has stated in the National Skills Policy, 2015. Nor is the number joining the labour force (for whom employment has to be found)  anywhere close to the 12 million per annum that is repeated ad nauseum by policy-makers, industry and the media; it is no more than 7 million per annum.

But the challenge is stupendous in any case. Without employer involvement the target can never be met. But involvement has to go well beyond the adoption of ITIs by CII and FICCI. It has to take many other forms  and very urgently.
 
Please click here to read more. 

TheWire.in, 31 May, 2016, http://thewire.in/2016/05/31/the-private-sectors-commitment-to-the-national-skill-development-programme-is-shaky-39280/


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close