RESKILLING SOCIETY – Check all the Facts Here

WHAT’S IN NEWS: How enabling the degree apprentices will make India’s skill system self-healing? The need for upgraded skill development in India and ways to do it.

Apprenticeship:  Apprenticeship is an arrangement between a person (an apprentice) who wants to learn a skill and some person or organization who need a skilled employee. He works for a fixed period of time in order to learn the skill. Apprentice will be paid a fixed amount of sum during the training and gets a certification for the training.

PREPARING INDIA’S SKILL SYSTEM:

• Enabling degree apprentices – a tripartite contract between an employer, university, and the youth – will make our system self-healing, enroll 10 million young people, and make India the world’s largest apprentice system.
• A better mental model which suggests better patterns and help us make sense of our circumstances will give better ideas for the future.
• The model should be planned in such a way that it compliments both our capital and labour.
• Our skill mental model must shift from classical physics (simplicity and linearity) to quantum physics (reflexivity and complexity).

DEGREE APPRENTICES AS A PILLAR OF NEW MENTAL MODEL:

• LEARNING WHILE EARNING: Skill development faces a market failure in financing. Most young Indians are not able make themselves employable by out-of-pocket expenditures. Degree apprentices will help them attract money via stipends and scholarships. It will enhance inclusivity and help solve the problem for both employers and candidates. Employers will get trained graduates with better productivity, lower attrition and easy availability and candidates will get employment.
• LEARNING BY DOING: Our skill system should shift from supply & faculty-based curriculum to demand based so that our students could develop the current, soft and theoretical skills which are required in fast growing wage premium job market such as customer services, sales etc and can only be learnt by doing.
• LEARNING WITH FLEXIBLE DELIVERY: Skills can be learnt in four classrooms: On-the-job (apprenticeships), online, on-campus, and onsite (faculty coming to workplaces). Prices of all these vary and we need a system which will deliver employability and inclusiveness by combining these four in required proportions depending on needs, abilities, demands of employers and job seekers.
• LEARNING WITH QUALIFICATION MODULARITY: The ‘NAI TALIM’ vision of Mahatma Gandhi with holistic and experimental education which aimed to build self-reliant child by enabling him to use his acquired knowledge and skills in practical affairs of life, needs to be realized. This can be done by making vocational and degree education complementary. National Educational Policy 2020 proposes to remove partitions between schools, skills, and college. Degree apprentices offer academic credit for prior skills and for on-the-job learning, and full qualification modularity between certificates, diploma and degrees.
• LEARNING WITH SIGNALLING VALUE: Massifying Higher Education with our goal of 50% Gross Enrolment Ratio, with equality, excellence and employability needs a different balance of entry and exit gates, unlike the prevalent IIT, Chartered Accountants system which have very tight norms. Signalling value should be based on quality of workforce and not on institution.

Degree Apprentices have higher capacity and employability than many pure campus degrees because the tripartite agreement contract is a financing, signalling value and delivery innovation. And it is our policy priority for many years, in the 20-point programme of 1975. 

Now it is high time for its bright and better execution when we have with us the willing employers, universities, and students.

All that is required is to loosen the grip over regulations in tripartite apprenticeship contracts, online university licensing, legislative definitions, National Skill Quality Framework (NSQF) pathway to degrees, process complexities, quota simplifications etc.

STEPS IN THIS DIRECTION:

Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship has made several efforts to increase the number of apprentices hired by enterprises in the country. The aim is to fill the gap in supply and demand for skilled workforce and meet the aspirations of the Indian youth through gaining on-the-job training and securing better opportunities for employment. The apprentices will receive direct industry exposure and monthly stipend as per the Government standards for developing new skills, an opportunity to earn while they learn.

• Apprenticeship Act 1961: It was enacted with the objective was enacted with the prime objective to utilize fully the facilities available in industries for imparting practical training and thus developing skilled manpower for industries.
• SKILL INDIA, in association with the Directorate General of Training (DGT), had organised a day-long ‘Apprenticeship Mela’ across the country in more than over 700 locations on 21^st April 2022 with the aim is to support hiring of more than one lakh apprentices and assist employers in tapping the right talent and develop it further with training and providing practical skillsets.

• The National Policy of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, 2015 launched by the Prime Minister in 2015 recognises apprenticeship as a means to provide gainful employment to skilled workforce with adequate compensation.
• NATIONAL APPRENTICESHIP PROMOTION SCHEME(NAPS), 2016 was launched to provide industry led, practice oriented, effective and efficient mode of formal training to increase the engagement of apprentices.
• The Ministry of Rural Development implements Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY) to drive this national agenda for inclusive growth, by developing skills and productive capacity of the rural youth from poor families. It bridges the gaps by funding training projects benchmarked to global standards, with an emphasis on placement, retention, career progression and foreign placement.
• PRADHAN MANTRI KAUSHAL VIKAS YOJANA (PMKVY), the flagship scheme for skill training of youth to be implemented by the new Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship through the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC).  Training and Assessment fees are completely paid by the Government. The Skill training would be done based on the National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) and industry led standards.
• National Apprenticeship Training Scheme (NATS):  It is one of the flagship programmes of Government of India (under MHRD) for Skilling Indian Youth. It is a one-year programme equipping technically qualified youth with practical knowledge and skills required in their field of work. The candidates get certificates, recognized by National Council for Vocational Education and Training (NCVET), increasing the chances of their employability after the training.
• Scheme for Higher Education Youth in Apprenticeship and Skills (SHREYAS): Ministry of Human Resource Development launched the scheme for providing industry apprenticeship opportunities to the general graduates through the National Apprenticeship Promotional Scheme (NAPS). The program aims to enhance the employability of Indian youth by providing ‘on the job work exposure’ and earning of stipend.

National Employability Enhancement Mission, (NEEM): It is also known as National Employability Enhancement Scheme. It is a pioneering initiative taken jointly by AICTE and Government of India to provide on the job training to the candidates. NEEM is an apprenticeship program which helps those enrolled in educational institutes gain first-hand experience of working in an industrial set-up. NEEM Trainee is a student or any person who has registered themselves under NEEM. They should have a minimum education up to Class 10th.