India Skills strive to the best

G S Oinam *

One thing that is important to be skilled man is the non stop pursuit of perfection. Every achievement drives to do more; each milestone pushes to be more, an India Skills thrive on excellence and strives to relentlessly the best in everything that we do. It is what we live for. And India Skills do this by improving skills, team work, service and products. So do you want to be at the top? Or are you ready to settle for the second best? Rajat Khawas, India skills expert talk to G.S.Oinam (please visit www.indiaskills.com.)

Teaching Skills the World Class Way: To meet the need for trained manpower, India skills offer international standard qualifications with a dual focus; industrial knowledge and specific skills for effectiveness in the work place.

Developing the Right Qualifications: C & G expertise and industrial stakeholders- subject matter experts + product items- Functional skills, industrial specific, qualification, neutral skills, industry specific, qualification specific skills-Core course content- Theory and knowledge intensive Modules and Practical & Exposure Intensive Modules.

India Skills is a joint venture between two global leaders in education- Manipal Education and City Guilds, U.K. It is specifically created to make an impact on the vocational training landscape by upgrading the quality of vocational skill based training and to positively impact the futures of both the individuals and the industry at large.

A KPMG survey conducted on middle-level managers at leading retails chains confirm that there is a shortfall of store level skill gets at front end. 73% of respondents stated the shortfall was significant. Indian retail would need additional 210000 customers’ associates over the next three years. With a current estimate of 50 rooms in the hotels and investment plans for around 100,00 crores by 2011; the hospitality industry will required around 9 lakhs skilled employees by 2012.

For existing front end staffs, basic skill levels in service and operations is extremely low- reducing business productivity. This skills shortage had added to business complexity and cost –driven up by poaching and in house training.

64% India’s population would be in the working age of 15-64 years in 2026, up from 62.9% in 2006.As the world population ages; India has the advantage of the demographic divided. This demographic advantage that we enjoy- coupled with the prospect of global shortages in skilled labour-means that the country could be supplying skills to the world.

Though the present labour force is large, the percentage of trained skilled labour is minimal of the 75 million jobs that will be created in the next 5 years, 75% of them will require skills training. To achieve the 5 year goal, we need the capacity to train 15 million per annum but the current vocational training capacity in India is 3.1 million per annum. A significant shortage in skills development has led to importing labour.

In order to address the skill shortage, HRD ministry has proposed a National Vocational qualification Framework (NVQF) base on international link various qualifications and get common principles and guidelines for nationally recognized qualification system. The Unified system of national qualifications will cover schools, vocational education and training institutions and higher education sector.

NVQF is based on nationally recognized occupational standards-a detailed listing of all major activities that a worker must perform in the occupation-or competency standards- a detailed listing of all major performance in the occupation- a detailed listing of knowledge, skills and attitude that a worker should possess to perform a task- written by the particular employment- led sector skills council.

NVQF to be discussed in the meeting of Central Advisory Board of education (CABE) is to implement Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s stress to set up a Vocational Education Mission. CABE will also discuss new legislations like the NCHER Bill, setting up a national depository for certificates and issues like common science and mathematic curriculum in XI and XII standard.

The Prime Minister had declared 1600 new industrial training institutes and polytechnics, 10000 new vocational schools and 50,000 new skill development centres’s to ensure 100 lakh students get vocational training. Currently, 17 ministries /departments run vocational educational training programmes to 28 lakh people. Eleven countries presently have NDVQ- including United Kingdom, Switzerland, Australia, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, Shri Lanka and South Africa etc.

Introducing what is New in New Public Management:

1. System Thinking: Think globally and act locally-Knowledge integration- local, national and international-Integration problems- integration solution for various problems or problem separation- solution for separated problem
2. Speed of Process: Right person right job- right time right place.-e governance- SMART governance (simple, moral accountable, responsive and transparent) - Tape management- jointed up governance.
3. New Budget Techniques & Audit: Mission Budget- outcome Budget- New Performance Budget- Customer Satisfaction- Audit
4. Upgraded Human Resource: e-recruitment-e-training-e- leadership programme
5. Inclusively: Rural growth consortium, Urban Growth consortium (public private partnership model) - sustainable and practicable both in urban, rural and tribal areas without disturbing tribal costume nary/ values.
6. Modernization of Politicians: thinking- management –activities- preferably eligibility test like aptitude test, attitude test, efficiency test, decision making skills, knowledge integration test (local, neighboring states knowledge, national and international knowledge) etc.