‘Don’t Have The
Luxury Of Time’
The target group
for skill development includes 12.8 million people who enter the labour
market annually
Skilled labour is a pre-requisite to
making in India. The National Skill Development Policy (NSDP) aims at skilling 500
million people by 2022. The target group for skill development includes 12.8
million people who enter the labour market annually, the 26 million employed in
the organised sector and a further 433 million in the unorganised sector. The
target is ambitious as the current capacity of skill development programmes is
just 3.1 million. Sunil Arora, secretary of the newly created Department of
Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, talks to BW’s Joe C. Mathew on the Modi
government’s thrust on skilling India. Excerpts:
The take-off of the
Make In India mission largely depends on the availability of adequately skilled
human resources. How does the government intend to plug the huge demand-supply
gap that exists in this area today?
Skilling India is a political vision and
also an economic necessity. This vision has been articulated by none other than
Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself on several occasions. He has always
underscored the need for skilling India. The department (of skill development)
was created in July 2014 for this specific purpose. In November, after the
reshuffle of the Cabinet, it became a full-fledged ministry (of Skill
Development and Entrepreneurship).
Does that mean the
government is looking at skilling India in mission mode?
When you use the word mission, there are
two different connotations. One is mission as a structure. The other is mission
as in the mission of a nation. It is indeed the mission of the nation. At the
same time, a formal structure of this mission is also being worked out.
Where do we stand
today in terms of skilling India?
There are islands of excellence. In the
five months since I took over as secretary (in September 2014), I have
interacted with almost 180 stakeholders from across the country. I visited
Gujarat and saw the best practices in existence there for more than a decade. I
reviewed the Rajasthan mission. I had an interaction with the Tata Institute of
Social Sciences. My experiences have been very humbling. But that is not enough
when the country aims to give a fillip to manufacturing. The challenge is to
scale this skilling to gargantuan proportions. It has to be done with speed
while ensuring quality
outcomes. We are dealing with people who
possess skills traditionally passed on through generations.
Which sectors are you
hinting at?
The biggest will be construction,
followed by retail. We also have traditional sectors such as handloom and gems
and jewellery.
Under the Make In
India mission, the government has identified 25 sectors, which include
information technology, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and chemicals. How do you
see the skill deficiency in such priority sectors?
These are areas where NSDC (National
Skill Development Corporation, which comes under the administrative purview of the
ministry) has already formed sector skill councils. The biggest supply-demand
problem exists in the construction sector.
What have the skill
councils achieved so far?
So far, we have seen more than 14 lakh
enrolments across 19 skill councils. Training was imparted under 297 job roles across
35 states and Union territories. It was possible through the involvement of 719
training partners and 2,808 assessors from 29 assessment agencies.
What is the role of
the private sector in skill development?
This ministry has two arms — National
Skill Development Agency, created in 2013, and NSDC. The equity in NSDC is almost
equally shared by the government and the private sector. It is a private
company in that sense.
Has there been any
progress in terms of this framework?
One of the major developments that have
taken place is the notification of the National Skills Qualifications Framework
(NSQF) in December 2013. This framework (a quality assurance certification
which organises qualifications according to a series of levels of knowledge,
skills and aptitude) attempts to align the certification process in terms of
learning outcomes, which the learner must possess regardless of whether the
skills were acquired through formal, non-formal or informal learning. At the
moment, there is no convergence or harmony in various certifications given by
various bodies. NSQF provides this platform.
How do you see the
targets set under the NSDP?
There are several studies related to the
500-million target. The fact is if you have to grow at 7.5 per cent and higher,
which is expected under the current scenario, you have to scale up 15-20 times.
Despite the task being huge, we are trying. We are working on all fronts, and
we don’t have the luxury of time. On the one hand, we are scaling up the
numbers through NSDC, definitely increasing the output by over tenfold from
current levels. We are also trying to work through NSQF for certification. In
addition, corporate entities are being roped in. Also, infrastructure of
various ministries like the Railways are being used for skilling instead of
recreating the infrastructure. We are also working with the defence ministry to
ensure that highly motivated ex-servicemen are roped in as trainers and
entrepreneurs. So it’s a multi-front effort.
(This story was published
in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 09-03-2015)
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