The PMO needs to do ‘gati shakti’ on the Skill India scheme. Modi’s intervention important

text size:
a-
A+

wooain’t even talking About this Skill India today? This is the exact opposite of the initial enthusiasm and ‘Passion‘ was showcased in 2015 when the National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship was launched, Is India’s skill challenge over?

There is no doubt that a stagnant economy, which was further impacted by COVID-19, did not help, but the way we went about implementing vocational education ensured its wider consequences. The central government was the target from the beginning. This is partly understandable as it was faced with a massive task of providing training and employment to the 12 million people who join the Indian workforce annually. In this race to meet the ever-increasing target, the central government may have overlooked the finer points of the Skills Policy and the National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF).

The most important point in the policy is that skills should be seen as a part and parcel of education and not as a separate entity. They are like Siamese twins, artificially separating them would be disastrous for both. Secondly, its success depends on the collaborative working of 18 ministries involved in skilling besides state governments, school boards, universities and 37 sector skill councils like construction, retailing, hospitality, automobile etc. Earlier, this role was largely carried out by the Ministry of Labor and Employment, which has now been shifted to its new avatar – the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE).

Read also: Right Skills and Right Jobs: How Modi Government’s Grameen Kaushal Yojana is helping rural youth

role of education

The NSQF, which was approved by the central government more than a decade ago in 2013, outlines how general education, vocational education and work will be linked across the country. It begins by streamlining students in the ninth grade in schools into general or vocational education according to their ability as it leads to successful technical and vocational education and training programs in all countries such as Norway, Finland, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom is done. Or even China. Unlike skill certifications and diplomas provided by MSDE, which are standalone under NSQF, a person can continuously upgrade their skills and get certification which is uniform and valid across the country. It seamlessly provides the much needed avenues between education, skills and the job market. Subjects like reading, writing, arithmetic and science provide the basics of education to the students. By making the system a part of general education, it also tarnishes vocational education. Lastly, the NSQF emphasizes recognition of prior learning, which gives school dropouts a second chance.

The Ministry of Education and its bodies such as CBSE, State Boards, University Grants Commission (UGC), and universities did not make any serious effort to understand the NSQF to adopt the framework in its curriculum and design new curricula accordingly. Unfortunately, apart from several workshops organized by the All India Council for Technical Education from 2010 to 2014 involving state governments, universities and colleges, nothing concrete was done by others. UGC, on its part, did not move beyond promoting BVOC, which is a low hanging fruit as it mostly caters to the students of the education stream. Many universities implemented the NSQF under BVOC as they understood and eventually abandoned due to lack of proper guidelines.

Perhaps this slow response led MSDE to the NCVET (National Council for Vocational Education and Training) in December 2018 as the broad regulatory body for skilling and submission bodies such as the National Skill Development Agency (NSDA) and the National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT). notified. ) It was unfortunately also indicative of a gradual break in ties with education. Now the focus is mainly on Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY). After six years of implementation, the PMKVY dashboard says it has trained 132 million candidates, of which 105 million were certified. The initial target of training 40 crore by 2022 still remains a dream. Furthermore, the trained people are mostly of the lowest level, i.e. 1 to 4. This indicates a placement performance of 54 per cent, which may be mostly in the unorganized sector.

Read also: 51% of Indian women will be employable in 2022 as against 46% of men: Annual Skills Survey

Rebooting Skill India Program

To restart Skill India, the government needs to take two steps soon. Firstly, it needs to set up a National Skill University (NSU) under MSDE/NCVET on the lines of Indira Gandhi National Open University with All India Jurisdiction. This will ensure that skills and education go hand in hand, which is a key recommendation of the National Skill Policy 2015. The country does not have the luxury of waiting for school boards and universities to wake up and implement the NSQF. We only have a short window of 20 years to reap the demographic dividend. IGNOU’s story of making India a world leader in distance education in a very short span of the 1980s should serve as an inspiration. The NSU may, through the provision of its Act, be affiliated to all the skill centers and set standards for them. Working under the umbrella of NCVET, it is working closely with Sector Skill Councils (read industry partners) to develop pedagogy, learning methods, assessment systems, conduct “training programs to trainers” and develop accreditation models. could.

Second, skilling is such a serious matter that it cannot be left to the ministries, which can be harsh at times. To take Skill India forward, the PMO needs to: speed power On Skill India, as it is doing for infrastructure development, bringing together 16 ministries primarily with a view to “breaking down the silos”. Incidentally, PM Modi is also the chairman of the National Skill Development Council. His intervention will be crucial for securing the massive funding needed not only for up-gradation of infrastructure in schools for vocational education but also for bringing about necessary synergy between the various organs of the Modi government. This model then needs to be replicated in various states, where the Chief Minister/Chief Secretary can play a vital role in creating synergy between departments, skills and education, which alone can fix Skill India in the long run.

Ashok Thakur is a former Education Secretary to the Government of India.

(Edited by Srinjoy Dey)

subscribe our channel youtube And Wire