The 100 guarantee for 9

Include training in school and college curricula to make education more applied and exact, thus creating the trained manpower India desperately needs

The world today acknowledges the rise of the Indian economy as the outcome of a nation that has adhered to the basics of democracy, has followed a mixed economy and has ushered in steady liberalisation. With GDP growth for the current year pegged at slightly above 9 per cent, poverty levels have dropped and individual incomes have risen. With the manufacturing, IT and service sectors posting healthy growth for consecutive years, it is now acknowledged that India will be one of the three or four largest economies in the not-too-distant future. However, for sustained growth and development, India has to integrate into the world economy. This entails not only trade and foreign exchange reserves but also more international investments.

In such a scenario, the one crucial element that can alter the course of future growth is human resources. With talented Indians managing vital sectors in key positions in several countries across the globe, the availability of skilled professionals within India will be a challenge that needs to be met urgently. This is the time to talk about the possibility of creating a system that ensures a time-driven availability of trained young people to man the frontiers of India8217;s ever-growing industrial fabric.

The present-day Indian population is characterised by the following features: a wide, mainly rural and low-skill labour-intensive base; a comparatively smaller, skilled industry-standard intermediate level; and a thin, highly-skilled specialised core at the apex. This appears as a skewed profile, which is vertically distorted because of the numbers and low skills of agricultural labour. Conversely, the picture of India tomorrow suggests a barrel shape: A narrow, low-skilled labour-intensive base population, expanding towards the middle. A wider middle-level industry standard, but declining towards the apex. And a pyramidal highly skilled core that retains a healthy base. This future projection is, in fact, valid for the rest of the world as well.

The key to the success in achieving the above dynamism lies in efficiently preparing the available human elements to meet the skill demands of a gradually globalising economy. The human raw material has to be made effective and useful through education, training and exposure. In this marketing of processed human raw material, time and quality are two key parameters. Nearly 320 million people below 14 years of age are likely to work or study further. With 272 universities and 17,000 colleges, the tertiary education enrolment is only 9 per cent and enrolment at the tertiary level is set to increase to 23 million from the current 11 million. The government is targeting 70 million new work opportunities during the Eleventh Plan period 2007-2012. Clearly, India faces a severe shortage of trained manpower to meet the surging demand, in spite of its huge population.

The current scenario indicates a serious lacuna in both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of human resource development. One factor yet to be addressed is the time taken to convert the raw material into a usable product. Reducing this time is possible only if a close link is built between user organisations and educational institutions. The question that arises is this: is it necessary to impart education and applied exposure in a pre-set sequence? Is it not possible to include training in school and colleges curricula that will make the education more applied and exact? This is the basic argument of this article.

The key factors to be remembered are: One, the average time for completing studies and becoming eligible for working in industry needs to be reduced. Two, teaching focus needs to encourage creativity in professional education. Three, a system of apprenticeship at pre-university level in all streams needs to be introduced. Four, small towns must be involved in the changed connectivity scenario. Five, faculty exchange between top-rung institutions such as IIMs and IITs with other institutions needs to be undertaken to ensure quality teaching everywhere.

With such a system, the saving in man-year resources can be significant. Incidentally, Germany has been pursuing the so-called sandwich courses with very positive results. On the basis of current figures, if we gradually introduce this integration in a phased manner, training time can be reduced to a great extent. A rough estimate of the possible total saving accrued in the above model could be 60 million man-years in 2007-12 period, which will provide millions of additional, correctly trained manpower to the society.

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India is on the threshold of a massive socio-economic turnover and it is the time to seek new solutions in view of the approaching challenges.

Kingstedt is MD and president, Sandvik Asia, while Basu, a former IIT Kharagpur professor, is a consultant