Can vocational training be an alternative system
One way to increase the employment rate among the youth is to provide a vocation-based education, which may not only be easier to impart on a large-scale basis but would also prepare trainees for the work they are going to be engaged in on a day-to-day basis.
Today’s educational system in India could arguably be categorized as antiquated, having been set up to feed an industry-colony model. This assumes even more importance, given the failure in providing basic ‘formal education’ to all parts of the country. Though many arguments highlight the current system’s inability to provide formal education, as also its failure to create employable professionals, not enough solutions are presented as alternatives.
One way to turn this sorry state around could be to provide a vocation-based education, which may not only be easier to impart on a large-scale basis, but would also prepare students for the work they are going to be actually engaged in on a day-to-day basis.
In March 2019, an employability report stated that an alarming 80% of Indian engineers are unemployable because they do not possess the technical and technological skills required in today’s market. In other words, their four years of education did not equip them for the real work world. A vocational education, on the other hand, can be likened to a person learning on the job, the learning ground being in school/college.
The workplace right now, and of the near future, is changing rapidly, leaving the age-old educational system far behind. A certificate from a prestigious university could very well be of negligible value in the job market. The gig economy, expected to take over services jobs shortly, does not require a master’s degree, but rather skills, and the willingness, to work for anyone, at any time, from anywhere.
Automation is likely to render a good percentage of the workforce obsolete in the coming decades, whereas vocational education, targeted at jobs that are difficult, or impossible, to automate is the way forward. While select professions require extensive study and research—medicine and astrophysics, for example—fields that do not need such requisites far outnumber them. Students’ burden of making the demanding examination grades of overnight studies, stress, and panic, all to attain a rank that makes no difference to their useable skills in the real world may do well to turn to vocational education which hones practical skills.
Traditional formal education typically involves learning theories and other add-ons which are completely unrelated to developing a specific skill, and a significant portion of the subjects taught in class is promptly forgotten in under a month, given its irrelevance. A vocational course, on the other hand, targets only the student’s required skills. It is geared to train the student on various software platforms that a designer, for instance, might need, deep diving into design to foster the student’s creative side. This could result in a highly employable designer who has the required skills as also the training to take on design jobs from home. This is just one of many fields where vocational education has the potential to be more beneficial to an individual.
Vocational education has the added advantage of reinvigorating the dying arts and crafts such as carpentry, woodwork, and artisanal skills that fell victim to mass production over the last few decades. India is the cradle of the arts and crafts, and a good percentage of these ancient skills will eventually be lost to time unless people can find gainful ways to keep them alive
This said, one of the setbacks for vocational education, at least in India, is the stigma attached to it. Take, for example, those students who choose to go through the motions of attending engineering college rather than opt to get trained in machining.. It is also a matter of social prejudice that prizes an engineer above one with technical training, regardless of the fact that the latter is better able to handle industrial machines. However, though vocational training might not seem to match the sensibilities of the masses, this has been true of all significant changes worldwide.. Nevertheless, in a nation choked with an alarming increase in the number of less fortunate uneducated, as well as educated yet unemployable youth, work towards an immediate shift in established priorities is imperative.
Recognizing the need for vocational training, the Government of India has instituted measures to promote vocational training, including the setting up of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) in 2009 which encourages private sector participation in skilling by means of innovative funding models. Further, the National Skills Development Agency (NSDA) was created in June 2013 in order to work with State governments to rejuvenate and synergise skilling efforts. In addition, well established centres of Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) have now started concentrating on several fields that can benefit from functioning outside the umbrella of formal education, making a mark apart from traditional core engineering fields. These initiatives are certainly a step in the right direction, holding out hope that current efforts will be scaled to meet the growing demand for skilled manpower.
(Author Probir Roy Chowdhury is a Partner at JSA and Sherill Pal is a Principal Associate. Views expressed here are personal.)
