Licence to skill

For all the happytalk about our demographic dividend,our workforce is appallingly untrained only 2 per cent has skills training,compared to 96 per cent in Korea and 80 per cent in Japan. Private involvement in our ITIs was meant to prep our population,providing a 45-million-strong boost to the skilled workforce by 2012. So why is the skill development mission of which ITIs are one strand foundering? If there is limited demand in the manufacturing sector,as the review suggests,then service industries must step in to reorient these programmes. Making these technical institutes more self-directed and agile,and capable of meeting local market needs,is also vital. Setting up management committees to oversee instruction and placement,and giving students incentives,like membership of trade associations,tools,etc along with their diplomas is another positive step. Ultimately,industry-led skills training is the only way to bring our labour force up to speed. Germany has been doing it for decades over 50 per cent of its students work in an industry for a couple of years after high school,before further studies. Ditto for South Africa and Brazil,where industries fund training based on their needs.

Recently,the Planning Commission also recommended a 150 per cent income tax deduction to apprentice stipends by companies this could certainly change the logic of apprenticeship,from push to pull. The skill development project is foundering because of the multiplicity of ministries,and the lack of a cogent plan with the result that millions of people are unemployed,even as jobs that require basic specialisation go unfilled.