‘Private sector needs to help in designing vocational courses’
Academia, industry and think tanks need to work with government to enhance skillsbuilding initiatives
Let’s be honest, our vocational training seems to be vacationing in a bygone era. Why should this concern us? According to government data, only a meagre 2.3% of our total workforce has undergone formal skill training.
Even at the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranked India at 30th position on a global manufacturing index. The country’s manufacturing sector has grown by over 7% per annum on average in the past three decades and accounts for 16-20% of India’s GDP. WEF listed human capital and sustainable resources as the two key challenges for India and how we need to continue to raise the capabilities of our relatively young and fast-growing labour force. This entails upgrading education curricula, revamping vocational training programmes and improving digital skills.
Let’s take a feather from Finland’s cap where reforms in their technical and vocational education and training (TVET) over the past decade have made it popular, thus contributing to lower youth unemployment rates.
Over 50% of Finnish youth apply for the programmes, and it is now more competitive than general education. This has been possible because Finland amended its external and internal policies. Legislative reforms made in 2000 allow TVET students to progress for further studies at university or applied sciences level and provides its institutions with the same generous basic and development funding as general education institutions. Finland’s curriculum has been restructured to include the national core curriculum required for access to university, as well as strong on-the-job training and lifelong learning components. But, we do have a National Skill Development Corporation, which was formed in 2009 with the approval of the Union Cabinet as a not-for-profit public company to encourage and synchronise the private sectors initiatives in skill development.
Its objective is to increase the skill training capacity. Now, this is where there needs to be genuine collaboration by private orga- nisations, academia and think tanks, to work with the government and enhance the skill-building initiatives. There are organisations that are making the right kind of efforts in galvanising intent into measurable and tangible action.
But, a far more collective rigour is required to build the capacity of Industrial Training Institutes (ITIS), on-the-job training, vocationalisation of education, promoting entrepreneurship, upskilling the existing workforce, training and employment of people with disabilities, and combating the training and hiring gap.
So what next? We need to position vocational training and education as a recognised and reliable form of education, opening pathways for growth.
Employment is only possible in today’s day and age, if one is adequately able to enhance one’s skills. As compared to fully developed nations, India has an advantage to include more people in the workforce and drive higher productivity. That simply means, it’s not enough to just ‘up our game’ when it comes to vocational training, we probably need to ‘be the game’.
The author is CEO, Asiapacific and Gulf at employment portal Monster.com