According to the Montreal-based UNESCO Institute for Statistics and Global Education Monitoring a report in 2016 points out that 47 million youth of secondary and higher secondary schools from India are dropping out of school for various reasons. It is now an established fact that school dropouts are easily vulnerable to getting sucked into crime and other unlawful activities. The newly formed Ministry for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) through its delivery arm the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has been making efforts to make unemployed and uneducated youth employable through skills training. The moot question is whether the efforts are bearing any fruits. All the available data points to a very negative picture.

Firstly, by its own admission, NSDC has no clue about what happens to the so-called ‘trained and skilled’ youth. They just don’t have any data. A report published in the Hindustan Times dated June 1st states that NSDC has been able to identify only 5% of the so-called trained youth under the much-touted Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna (PMKVY). The report further states that out of 17.07 lakh students, a mere 82183 got some kind of job- a dismal 5 %. This is despite the formation of more than two dozen Sector Skill Councils and more than a thousand National Occupational Standards (NOS). The question that needs to be answered is whether so many NOS were required and whether the so-called Sector Skill Councils have done justification for their formation. More fundamental is the question of whether NSDC has been able to deliver what was expected of it in the first place. In my humble opinion, it has conveniently morphed into a soft loan disbursal agency and now has the added task of issuing RFPs on a daily basis. It does look like its only expertise is to issue RFPs for virtually everything. How to start a model Training Centre? Issue an RFP. How to monitor quality- Issue an RFP. How to identify training infrastructure? Issue an RFP. How to screen a proposal? Again issue an RFP. One wonders whether it has any other mandate than issuing multiple RFPs. The officialdom has become so very prevalent that a routine proposal takes at least six months to get cleared. And this is the ultimate irony that on the one hand our Prime Minister has been pushing stalled projects at breakneck speed and on the other NSDC is taking its own time to expedite things. But again that is not the central theme of this article.

Coming back to the 47 million youth who drop out of school, the Sector Skill Council has prescribed a minimum grade of 12 as the eligibility criteria for skill learning for at least 5 programmes. This means a large majority would be out of the skills purview. What happens to them seems nobody's concern.

In this context, the learnings from the German Vocational system are worth mentioning. Also, a comparison with the Indian system of Vocational Training is an eye-opener. To start with any vocational program in Germany is not less than 2 years. And within 2 years the youth spends around 70 % of the time undergoing practical training in the Industry. In order to bring out a well-trained and groomed youth the minimum time taken is two years in Germany. Contrast this with the Indian Vocational training which ranges from one week to six months! How can we expect Indian youth to be nationally competitive and forget about his/her being globally competitive? No wonder such output is not welcomed by the industry.

Now a bit about the National Occupational Standards. These are nothing but simple job descriptions that state the obvious. During my several discussions with Mr.Jurgen Mannicke- one of the few international experts on vocational education and an old Indian friend indicated that the highly diversified German Industry works with 345 basic trades and does not have the multiplicity and complications of the Indian way of managing trade education. What is basic are the fundamentals of Mathematics, Physics, Technical Drawing and Principles of Material Science. A case in point is the Mechanical and Metal Trades Handbook (http://www.europa-lehrmittel.de/downloads-leseproben/1910X-3/1271.pdf/). This one single handbook is a standard reference handbook for the following trades:

  • Industrial and trade mechanics
  • Tool & die makers
  • Machinists
  • Millwrights
  • Draftspersons
  • Technical Instructors
  • Apprentices in the above trade areas
  • Practitioners in trades and industry
  • Mechanical Engineering students

The handbook contains the following 8 chapters:

  • Mathematics
  • Physics
  • Technical Drawing
  • Material Science
  • Machine Elements
  • Production Engineering
  • Automation & Information Technology
  • International Material Comparison Chart Standards

The chapter on Maths includes topics like units of measurement, formulas, angles and triangles, lengths, areas, volumes and surface areas, mass and centroids. The point is that vocational students, irrespective of the trades, need grounding in the fundamental principles. This aspect is completely ignored by the pundits of the Indian vocational system who seem obsessed with the formation of sector skills councils and the creation of totally useless job descriptions touted as national occupational standards and chasing unrealistic numbers that suit the political interests. Sadly this is a case of missing the bull's eye and lots of broken and missed arrows!