SKILL INDIA URGENTLY NEEDS REFORMS
Why has this issue cropped up ?
Salvaging the Indian demographic dividend must be a key part of India’s growth story.
Goals of ‘ Skill India ‘
The two goals in ‘Skill India’ are, first, to meet employers’ needs of skills and, second, to prepare workers (young and old) for a decent livelihood.
Reforms suggested in light of Sharda Prasad Committee :
- having a separate stream for vocational education (in secondary education), creating vocational schools and vocational colleges and having a Central university to award degrees and diplomas.
- Private vocational training providers (VTPs) are no substitute for industry-employer engagement with each pillar of the VET ecosystem: secondary schools; ITIs, public and private; NSDC-funded VTPs; ministries that train, and firms that conduct enterprise-based training.
- Aligning the courses to international requirements, ensuring a basic foundation in the 3Rs, and life-long learning. It implies national standards for an in-demand skill set with national/global mobility that translates into better jobs.
- Short duration courses (with no real skills) that provide low pay for suboptimal jobs cannot be called national standards. Hence the current national standards have to drastically improve.
- The focus should be in strengthening reading, writing and arithmetic skills. No skill development can succeed if most of the workforce lacks the foundation to pick up skills in a fast-changing world.
- Vocational training must by definition be for a minimum of a year, which includes internship (without which certification is not possible).
- Short-term training should be confined to recognizing prior learning of informally trained workers who are already working.
- Cases of a conflict of interests, of rigged assessments and of training happening only on paper are not new. There is a huge ethics and accountability issue if there is no credible assessment board and when there are too many sector skill councils, each trying to maximize their business.
- There should be a unification of the entire VET system. What we have today are fragmented pillars. Each of the five pillars does what it wants to, with no synergy.
- ‘Skill India’ can have an impact only when all of them work together and learn from each other.
- Reimbursements for those companies undertaking training while rewarding industry for sharing and undertaking skilling until everyone in the company is skilled.
- Govt should have surveys, once every five years, through the National Sample Survey Office, to collect data on skill providers and skill gaps by sector. Such data can guide evidence-based policy-making, as against the current approach of shooting in the dark.
- We need more reflection from stakeholders on the actual value addition done by the skilling initiative. The NSDC, which was envisioned as a public-private partnership, receives 99% of its funding from government, but its flagship scheme has a less than 12% record of placement for trainees.
Conclusion
India can surely become the world’s skill capital but not with what it is doing right now. The reforms suggested by the committee can be a good starting point for we cannot let another generation lose its dreams.
Relevance : GS 3
Try this probable Mains question :
