Anand Choudhary | 30 May, 2008
The transition towards a global economy based on the acquisition and application of knowledge as the driving force depends extensively on high levels of skills in the labour markets of nations.
In this regard the demand for workers possessing appropriate and high level skills has increased dramatically over the past several years and will continue to do so over the next decades.
Innovation and better economic and social outcomes for a country can be achieved only by building national intellectual and skills capacity. Increased investment in higher education and vocational education is the key to building that capacity. How and where funding is allocated is critical to addressing skill shortages, increasing innovation and global competitiveness.
Economic growth in India has, in the last few years , picked up considerable momentum with services and the manufacturing sector showing a great deal of buoyancy. While the jury is out on whether the country can sustain a GDP growth of percentage per annum, it's generally agreed that much greater attention would have to be paid to the area of skill development. There has been a lot of talk, not all of it well informed, about India becoming a Knowledge Power, but given our comparatively young population, we have a long way to go before we realize our full potential.
Following are some of the key issues highlighting the need for large scale skill development initiatives in the workforce:
- The huge number of people added to the workforce each year and their low preparedness to avail the emerging employment opportunities make the issue of skill development self evident.
- The rest either are fresh hands...they come into the workforce untrained or are trained by the employer on the job.
- The Planning commission, in 2001 had found that 44% of all workers in 1999-2000 were illiterate and another 22.7% had schooling only up to primary level.
- It also found out that in the age group 20-24, 5% of the Indian labor force had vocational skills, which was much lower than other other countries including Mexico which had 28%. The National Sample Survey organization (NSSO) Employment/Unemployment Survey (61st round 2004-05)reinforces this position.
The nodal agencies facilitating education and training in India are as follows:
(i) Elementary
(ii) Secondary
(iii) Adult Education and Literary
(iv) Department of Higher Education (Ministry of Human Resource Development)
(v) University and Higher Education
(vi) Technical Education
(vii) Minority Education
(viii) Directorate General of Employment and Training (Ministry of labour)
(ix) ITIs
(x) Vocational training
Here we need to understand the Indian scenario. The university sector has an enrollment of more than 10.4 million students each year. Graduates in the general stream outnumber those with professional qualifications. More than 80% of enrollment is in the Arts, Science and Commerce streams. Now the problem is, out of the 3 million graduates who pass out every year from universities, only 39% are employable, according to a research done by Aspire, a corporate firm in collaboration with Mckinsky group.
So, Vocational training for the youth is not only imperative, but is the need of the hour. Outside the formal education sector, the country has a large education and training sector. This comprises institutions imparting diploma level training, Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and Industrial Training Centres (ITCs) for craftsmen training and apprenticeship training in the formal sector. Diploma-level courses are primarily imparted by the polytechnics.
However, in recent times the intake and capacity into these courses has only been marginally increasing. One reason for this has also to with the people's psyche. Its traditionally ingrained in the youth's mind that getting a university degree is key to respect and getting a "white collared" job.
This is one of the reasons that in comparison with countries in Europe or Latin America, a large number of youth especially in small towns and cities in our country stills prefer to obtain a simple graduate's degree rather than going for a professional course which will provide them job in the industry. Thus, that psyche needs to be changed.
At the school level, there is a lack of awareness and willingness to actively engage in vocational education and training. This is also coupled with the availability of such programmes being in lesser number. Targeted to ensure that 25% of all higher secondary students are enrolled in vocational courses in the year 2000, only 3% got enrolled. With a capacity utilization of only about 42% and capacity of about 846,100 places in vocational courses, only about 350,000 to 400,000 students are enrolled in vocational education.
The levels of vocational skills of labor force in India compare poorly with other countries. Only 5% of the Indian laborers had vocational training compared to 96% in Korea and varying between 60-80% in industrial countries. This clearly points out that the education system in India is excessively oriented towards general education with little or no vocational orientation.
Thus, both the government and the people need to understand the importance of vocational training and education and work on it, providing it to the millions of our unemployed or better say unemployable youth. If we really want our large human resource to be come our strength rather than a burden.
