Should higher education be vocationalised? The answer is a definite yes, what with 70% of the population below the age of 35 years. Also, the population in the crucial age group of 10 years-19 years comprises 225 million, the highest in the world.
According to the report of the Working Group on Skill Development and Training by the Planning Commission, set up for the preparation of XI plan, while the number of job-seekers with the employment exchange is 4.03 crore (2005), most of the job-seekers, (about 80%) in employment exchange are without any professional skill. According to the Planning Commission report, an 8% growth rate with ?business as usual? will contribute 3 crore employment opportunities and special employment generation programmes will yield 2 crore employment.
The report mentions that ?countries with higher and better levels of skills adjust more effectively to the challenges and opportunities of globalisation?.
According to Planning Commission mission statement on higher and technical education, the government is planning to set up more IITs (Indian Institute of Technology), IIMs (Indian Institute of Management), NITs (National Institute of Technology), IIITs (International Institute of Information Technology), IISERs (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research), and School of Planning and Architecture, for which the provision in the XIth Plan is Rs 5,000 crore.
According to a McKinsey report, about 81% of Indian companies, believe that the lack of human resource will be the single largest deterrent to speedy development. A World Bank report done last year by its human development unit of the South Asia region on ?Skill development in India, vocational education and training system?, said that compared to 27 % in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, only 11% of firms provide training in West Bengal.
Dr Vijay Khole, vice-chancellor, University of Mumbai, ?The University of Mumbai started the Garware Institute 25 years ago to provide vocational training to students and school/college dropouts. The enrolment right now stands at about 1,500. We have 56 programmes offering training in media and communication, retail management, agri-product management, travel and tourism and IT. These are basically certificate, diploma and advanced diploma courses, and not degree courses.? A Ma Foi survey (global search services) predicts that 10, 30, 040 jobs will be created this year.
The sectors expected to drive job demand in India are IT &ITES, manufacturing, retail, communication and transport. IT and BPO sector could employ 9 million persons by 2010, according to a NASSCOM-McKinsey Report 2006. Manufacturing in the next decade in the country is expected to create 25 million jobs. According to a recent CII-ICRIER study on Higher Education in India, the global IT offshoring market is to the tune of $ 300 billion, ?of which India may be able to garnet $ 60 million by 2010?. The report also mentions that India could achieve $165 billion in merchandise trade by 2009-10, creating an additional 21 million new jobs. Meanwhile, Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BNCCI) started giving vocational training to young men and women from the early 60s. ?We were mainly doing counselling then,? said D P Nag, secretary of the chamber BNCCI started an institute for vocational training from 1999. It is now building a four-storey building at Saltlake in Kolkata to start full-fledged vocational training centre. It has received Rs 1 crore as grant from the central and the state government for the centre. It is necessary to focus on market needs while developing courses. According to Karuna Sindhu Das, Vice Chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University, in the age of globalisation everything has to marketed well, and education is no exception to that. In these circumstances vocational courses or courses from which students can get jobs or are industry oriented are in vogue. The university plans to start courses like MA in Hindi. ?Even though we will provide theoretical knowledge about the subjects we will try to train the students to be translators in embassies and to work in All India Radio and Doordarshan where the you can get a job,? he said. More students are studying visual arts and are getting interested in fields like films, editing and scriptwriting.
The CII report, quoting the finance minister P Chidambaram (Budget speech 2005) said 10 million additional jobs could be generated through irrigation, 2.5 lakh jobs are being created annually in the food processing sector, the textile sector could create employment for 12 million people in the next five years, while lakhs more jobs could emerge from the construction industry. The report recommends strengthening of corporate-academia bonds.Prof Ashok Pundir, associate dean, NITIE, Mumbai, says, ?We are a professional institution, where students come with a very specific objective to seek training in general management, industrial engineering, industrial safety and environment management and IT management. Vocational training is imperative for a student because it equips him or her with skill sets that are vital for picking up a job.? With India becoming a global hub for outsourcing, skill-based education is definitely the need of the hour. The CIA report mentions that, ?corporate-academia cooperation? needs been enhanced, as ?India has the potential to become a global supplier of R&D with 125 of the Fortune 500 companies having set up research bases (here)?. Says Anand Sudarshan, MD & CEO, Manipal Education, Bangalore, ? We consider vocational education very much a part of higher education. Vocational education also ensures that the student is geared to be a breadwinner from the time he graduates.? He adds, ?At Manipal Academy of Higher Education, we have taken the lead ?connecting? vocational education and degree-based university education.?
According to the CII report, the services? sector share in GDP has increased from 50% in 2000-01 to over 56% in 2005-06. It mentions that training and education have become an invaluable aspect of the services sector. The Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi, was started with the aim of providing vocational and professional to students in Delhi. Says VK Jain, Registrar, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi, ?Our university was set up nine years ago, in these years we have started various courses. At present, we are running 60 courses in 90 colleges, where 40,000 students has been enrolled. We are planning to launch new campus by 2009, in an area of 60 acres of land in Dwarka and also in East Delhi.?
The need, therefore, for vocationalising higher education cannot be over-emphasised. Awareness at the policy to evolve a skills-based education is timely.
?With inputs from Viveat Susan Pinto, Rohit Khanna and Ruchi Kapoor
