Skills are needed by two distinct groups. Those who are in college, about 20 to a hundred, and the others who have never seen a college or for that matter even a school. A student who completes a degree or a diploma eventually finds an employment, even if termed underemployment, which of course is not as bad as no employment. Employment skills or lack of it depends on the workplace and is also the responsibility of the workplace. Can State or the education system be blamed for this? Can they take over this responsibility? University Skills and Workplace skills should be seen and acknowledged as distinct. Finishing schools can only do so much to the communication and interpersonal skills and are useful only if subject skills are ingrained by the University system. It certainly is a matter of concern if this were to be the contrary.
The skill centres focussing on the first group makes a better business sense for their placement is easier. Does it promote the National cause is a debatable issue? It is a moot point to debate if the placement was due to the skills imparted or was actually due to the fact that they had a diploma or a degree. Reskilling at the workplace is also a serious issue but again is in the domain of the workplace. This brings us to the second larger group and the skills that they need.
The department of employment in Australia carries out research to identify skill shortages in the Australian labour market. The research results provide information about skill shortages at the state, territory and/or national level. An Indian data base on similar lines is hard to come by. It will aid meaningful skill dispensation in the country if credible numbers are associated with the Skill levels and job roles identified by NSDC is also available in the public domain. There are skills that are easy to impart, easy to measure and easy to certify. A revenue model built around these skills may get off the ground but will it sustain? A holistic approach to skills imparted and their employment potential must be assessed.
Several traditional skills have an unexplored job market and consequent earning potential that has not been researched and hence shunned as revenue models. These need to be reinvented.
In India, 65% of youth in the age group of 30-35 translate into 10's of millions of the same percentage which is massive by any standards. They all need skills for employment, only more so for the second group of this discussion.
More than ten thousand ITI's have failed to deliver, as the trade based skills they impart are terminal in nature and hence reskilling becomes mandatory for better placements. The pathways they provide into formal education is a double-edged sword and can cut either way. Industry metamorphosing into completely automated drive has put additional pressure on the training centres which have not kept pace with the industry market requirements.
Skills are being given through State run and private skill centres, in almost all the States for several years going, which have been delivering in a limited way. A cursory glance through the training programs reveals that most of them are the trade based, traditional, not kept pace with times and limited in reach. Acceptability in the society for such courses has been limited. The standards of training, operational details, curriculum, and certifications have all followed systems specific to the State and have not been cohesive from either National or International perspective, leading to disaggregated skill delivery mechanisms. The mobility of trainees both within and outside the Country consequentially has been a casualty.
In the formal sector, industries over the years have been identifying apprentices under either the National or State Acts and training them for their annual requirements. A small number of trainees find their way to employment through this formal route.
60% of India's workforce is self-employed, many of who remain very poor. Nearly 30% are casual workers. Only about 10% are regular employees, of which two-fifths are employed by the public sector. More than 90% of the labour force is employed in the "unorganised sector", i.e. sectors which do not offer the social safety and other profit of employment that are available in the "organised sector." This is the critical area for skills and the captive market that must be expanded for an enhanced GDP growth.
With almost 6 million graduates passing every year, finding appropriate employment year on year for them is in itself a challenge. The problem is massively compounded when employment has to be found for an age group of 25 which is 5 times as large, year on year, who lack skills and education of any consequence.
Expanding available job markets, creating new job markets to absorb this large number must be a cardinal principle on which the Government must work. Aadhar and large-scale digitisation will move markets increasingly to the formal fold which must be welcomed and if need be legislated.
Creation of new cities to ease pressure on the existing ones will boost the infrastructural initiatives leading to new job markets. "Make in India", indigenisation of defence equipment through start-up ventures will add to the job markets. There is much to learn and worth emulating from the Australian model where a close synergy exists between TAFE NSW and their National Employment Division.
New projects like bidding for Olympics is preceded with a detailed planning of the infrastructural requirements like stadia, roads, new housing complexes and support systems. Further planning helps in new skills required, employment potential for the locals to be estimated, capacity of existing community colleges to be evaluated and new skills centres approved in the towns and villages covered.
This pre-empts any excess trained workers left unemployed apart from the gains of creating new cities. The Skill paradigm needs to be planned to the last detail lest a skilled workforce is created who do not find jobs, causing a general degradation in the quality of the future workforce.
The current skills paradigm cantered on NSDC could go the ITI way if several of the concerns are not addressed leading to the argument that skills must be institutionalised with the education system. Further, it could easily become a super regulator for skills without the requisite wherewithal to implement, a malice afflicting many of our current regulators. If skills are dove tailed into current universities that offer degrees or diplomas, they being autonomous would create their own curriculum and systems of evaluation for the award of certifications and NSDC would have no jurisdiction either. Having said that, the current model suffers from a serious disconnect with education.
The skills implemented at various levels under the current framework are for varying hours of duration at each certification level across sectors and certified by the SSC's, leading to different credits at similar certification levels across different sectors. Accumulation of such credits for the award of a degree or diploma by a university is not feasible since the number of credits would be different for each sector for the same degree or diploma. All this would compound the disaggregation that already is plaguing the system.
The skills paradigm must include education, albeit different for both the groups of skill seekers and must also lead to the award of a degree or a diploma if they so choose to go from one certification level to the other, learning at their own pace and be awarded when sufficient credits are accumulated. Alternatively, they would also have a predominantly skills channel available with supportive education. The current administrative and operative structure is not designed to handle this.
The Several States are planning, or have already set up skill universities. Under the existing laws, they would be autonomous and skill standardisation across the Country would be hard to realise. Over time, these universities would operate like the traditional universities that we have today with all the associated baggage defeating the very purpose of imparting skills.
What is the way out? The author proposes that the Government create a National Skills University (NSU), as a Central University, anchored in the Skills Ministry, with regional centres all over the Country preferably in each of the States or even in all the districts as we move on. The NSU must affiliate all skill centres throughout the Country through provisions in its Act and must set standards for curriculum, create curriculum with SSC's, develop teaching pedagogies, learning methodologies, create evaluation systems with NSDC and also conduct research in skills both traditional and emerging.
Skills only, or skills and education through various certification levels can easily be conducted under the provisions of the university and award of a degree or a diploma would be legally tenable for those who wish to progress through higher certification levels. The underlying assumption is that the higher certification levels are higher order skills in the same sector. This prevents disaggregation of skills, their delivery and meets National goals and would truly aid in India becoming the "Skills Capitol" of the World.
The NSU can create an enabling and facilitate regulatory environment under the "Make in India" blueprint. It can further work on developing technology enhanced curriculum and content, conduct Train the Trainers Programs with the SSC's, develop Accreditation Models for both Trainers and Trainees, and evolve to seek Dublin and Sydney Accord.
The university can also create revenue models for sustainability both from the university and student perspectives. As its external links, the NSU can plan collaborations with SAARC Countries to promote skills and training for employment and plan collaborations with American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Germany-based Community Colleges and their regulatory bodies. Placements could be aggregated through collaborations with the Industry bodies. With Aadhar linked Labour Management Information System (LMIS), the Country stands to gain in still unexplored proportions.
Such as NSU set up as a Society or a Section 8 Company preferably near an Industrial zone and an airport may include infrastructure like office space, auditoriums, Guest houses, Training centres, Hostels, Model skill centres, and research centres. It could collaborate with other Institutions, corporate and businesses houses and others. The university could also aid creating training centre "Supply Chains" in various sectors across the Country.
These supply chains would allow professional training centres to come up with the Jaguar model of UK notwithstanding the fact that new business opportunities and new revenue models would evolve. Above all remember, GST evolved from a need for consolidation of multiplicity and education can be better off from the experience.
Creation of a corpus with funding from the State Governments, the Centre and CSR initiatives of the Industry, the creation of bonds, for possible soft loans, scholarships to fund the needy could be the proverbial icing on the cake.
Guest Author
Former Chairman of AICTE, Dr. Mantha is an eminent academician. At present, he is Chancellor KL University and Adjunct Professor, NIAS, Bangalore.
