Never before in the history of any
country has human capital development been such a key focus area
as 2011 was for India, marking the beginning of exciting times.
Determined to leverage the demographic dividend and reach the goal
of skilling 500 million, India created many ripples in 2011. Four
themes dominated the year in the context of skills development:
Private Industry participation in skills development
Skills development in India got a fillip when Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh constituted the National Council on Skills
Development in 2008 and the National Skills Development
Corporation (NSDC) thereafter. For NSDC, this year has been one of
the best -- a-one-of-its-kind public-private partnership formed to
contribute significantly to the charter of skilling Indians.
The corporation forged many new partnerships to train people,
including joint ventures with the Bharti Group for 11.5 million,
with Everonn for 15 million, with Future Group for seven million
and with NIIT for another seven million. As of its last month's
report, they have approved 34 training projects and eight sector
skills councils, covered 177 districts, set up 2,427 centres,
touched 20 sectors and have already set up the foundation required
to train 58.6 million people in 10 years.
In addition, under a special scheme, industry showed interest in
joining hands with NSDC to induct youth from Jammu and Kashmir to
train them in special skills at their facilities across India.
Appointment of an industry veteran, former Tata Consultancy chief
executive S. Ramadorai as an advisor to the prime minister in NSDC
with the rank of a cabinet minister, is yet another path-breaking
achievement this year.
Private participation extended beyond NSDC and many companies came
forward. Fiat India Automobiles launched "Diksha" to provide
educational avenues and technical training for youth. Axis Bank
and Bandhan jointly launched a Rs.100-crore initiative on
providing skills training and assets to the marginalised in West
Bengal.
Higher secondary education reform
The Ministry of Human Resource Development launched the revised
centrally-sponsored scheme of vocationalisation of higher
secondary education. To promote vocational training in schools,
the government established a vocational education cell within
Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). The scheme also helps
create a bridge between academia and industry. The National
Occupational Standards (NOS) developed by the sector skills
councils formed by NSDC will govern the activities in vocational
education.
In the area of higher education, Human Resource Development
Minister Kapil Sibal advocated the need for mobility of students
from one university to the other. The number of engineering seats
went up to 1.3 million in 2010-11 and the country initiated talks
on how to make the selection process for Indian Institutes of
Technology (IITs) and other engineering colleges more stress-free
for the students.
Job creation remained a key challenge
The government could create only one million jobs against the
target of 50 million jobs during the 11th Plan period that ends
March 31, 2012. It has now set a daring target of creating 60
million jobs during the 12th Five Year Plan.
As a step towards this, the government unveiled a new
Manufacturing Policy that promises 100 million new jobs. India is
also on the path to dusting off the Apprentices Act to create an
industry-driven apprenticeship regime.
Changing the social perception of skills
This was the first year when the WorldSkills Competition got
significant coverage in the media in India. A 16-member India
contingent participated in the competition in London. While
Indians did not win any medals, they surely showed the
determination to become the skills reservoir of the world by
participating in the event.
Path forward
As we move to the next year, we appear to be in the right
direction, even though we know we have a long way to go. Skills do
not form the social fabric of India as yet. To have social
currency in India, the acceptable tags are generally of an
engineer, a doctor, a master of business administration. Skills,
such as plumbing, electrician and masonry have little social
currency, and this is evident even in our matrimonial
advertisements. Changing the social perception about skills,
therefore, is our big challenge for 2012. Creating a social
epidemic called 'Get Skilled' should be one of our key focus
areas.
We should also look at launching events such as 'Indian Skills
Idol' and have popular brand ambassadors to endorse pride in
skills. Then we will not be apologetic about our 1.2 billion
population. We can be an enviable reservoir of 1.2 billion skilled
people. Let's declare 2012 as: "The Year of 'Proud to be a
Skilled' Indian."
Vijay Thadani id CEO of NIIT Limited and Chairman of
CII's Northern Region. He can be reached at vijay@niit.com
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