Ministry of Skill Development invites public comments on Sharada Prasad Committee Report

Dear Sir,

I am adding my comments on the four specific areas of the report below:

1. ON SSCs

The recommendations on convergence of management structure, efforts, funding etc for skill development at various levels are much awaited initiatives.

However recommendation on dissolving all SSCs to form new model may upset the ongoing initiatives and will cause losses, if it is done all of a sudden. Therefore it may be taken up in a phased manner. It will facilitate the implementation of efficient and effective change management also.

Even though there are gaps as the committee has pointed out, there are also a lot of services offered by them, including industry engagement, in an appreciable manner that are otherwise not possible in a large scale across the country in a regular. Of course, it may not be happening in the equal strength across all SSCs.

Therefore, the functional restructuring requirements of SSCs may be prioritised and implemented (trainer capacity development and conduct of assessments, would probably, get top issue positions along with training framework development). Earlier we went for the present massive institution building and implementation exercise based on some hypothesis we had in our hands then and now we find some serious gaps in it. The same may occur if we go for a one-go massive implementation based on the new hypothesis we have in our hands now. Therefore please go for a phased implementation with careful review at each step. It will be the best management practice.

2. ON EMBEDDING IN REGULAR CURRICULUM

I think, the report recommends embedding of soft-skills in the school curriculum and establishing separate Vocational Education and Training Centres (VETCs), perhaps in massive numbers, for professional skill development; of course, with possibilities of convergence with existing ITIs and Polytechnic Colleges.
Here, with respect to the soft skills, we may seriously go for implementing the Core Skill/ Life Skills as being promoted by UNESCO-UNICEF-WHO for the all-round development of individuals. It is already there in CBSE curriculum as part of CCE. But it has to be made further integral to curriculum by making these skills also objectives of various curriculum activities. Each text book has numerous interesting activity suggestions. If we provide proper training and guidance to teachers to train students on core skills, they will be able to beautifully design these curriculum activities accordingly. It can be transacted along with all subjects – that is the greatest beauty of it. It will dramatically enhance the quality of teaching and learning alike.

Skill integration also possible in a supplementary/complementary manner in school level. For example, Service Sector industry is very prominent in India and across the world. Therefore we can introduce some service sector competency development also along with the school curriculum. When we look into the professional competency requirements of entry level job roles in the service sector industry, we can find that a lot of competencies that can be developed through core skilling appear there among the professional competency listing also. It means, core skill development itself can contribute a great deal for the professional competency development for the service sector industry. And finally, service sector competency development would also support all round development of the individual as being expected out of core competency development. If we can use accurate product information in designing core competency development activities, it will turn out to be complete professional skill development programme for many service sector job roles – without adding too much load to both the teachers and students! This possibility has to be seriously explored.

When coming to 11 and 12 standards, why can’t we think about (1) industry accounting competency development as part of commerce curriculum, (2) hospitality, tourism, journalism etc for humanities, (3) health care, introductory exposure to product design and manufacturing etc for science steam etc These are all definite possibilities. It will be a strong supplement to VETCs as recommending by the committee. VETCs alone may not be able to cater to the industry needs.

On the above, broad and in-depth collaborative work would be highly essential along with NCERT and SCERTs. I think existing National Curriculum Framework (NCF) and many State Curriculum Frameworks also offer sufficient space for the same.

3. ON ADDRESSING THE SOCIAL STIGMA AGAINST TVET INSTITUTIONS

For addressing the social stigma against the TVET institutions, in the first place we have to review the manner in which those institutions are functioning now. Next important thing is to place before people easily workable horizontal and vertical mobility options between TVET and regular academic/professional studies. That is, a perfect implementation of NSQF.

4. ON CONSTRUCTING NEW TVET INSTITUTIONS

We have to ensure optimum use of existing institutions, including all training centres and labs etc in all the streams like regular academic, professional, TVET, industry in-house training facilities etc. Convergence, to the maximum extent possible, is required here. It will save substantial time, money and other resource. Above all, it will be the most environment friendly strategy.

Warm regards
Anil

Submission of suggestions
Ministry of Skill Development invites public comments on Sharada Prasad Committee Report
Submitted By:
Dr. Arvind Prakash,
Senior Project Consultant
Ernst Young
arvindp66@gmail.com
9784612629

Having expert manpower and headed by industry leaders the SSCs are closely associated with the skill landscape of India. The SSCs are playing key role in this arena to implement the program but in fact the requirement from the SSCs should be to play role to improve the skill landscape with qualitative focus. There are few most important roles to address for qualitative improvement of the entire program:
• Training of Trainer: One of the most important challenges is to find adequately qualified Trainers in different modules / trades adopted by NSQF/NCVT. Since it’s role is closely monitored by the industry leader so it is very easy to create a platform of the similar trade industries and together they can develop a curriculum in coordination with the respective SSC and the prospective trainers can be identified from institutions with an assurance of Job guarantee in this sector to be placed anywhere in India. They will be given an certificate with accreditation by the respective SSCs after completion of 3 or 4 months training. This may be a free or fee based training. In case of fee based Banks may give them loan which they will return after placement. A salary range for them may be structured by the SSCs. In this we could be able to address a very demanding requirement of the skill arena.
• Tie up with employers: Similarly having industry base in the SSCs the best work SSC can do is to assemble the employers of respective trade industries for the purpose of placement. One of the big reasons of the failure of the ‘Skill India’ mission is lack of opportunities of employment. There are a number of surveys inferred that India is suffering from gap in demand and supply of the skilled manpower. I think there is another gap being faced by youths of India which is non-acceptance of the skill training by the industries in big, small or medium sectors.
If SSCs will monitor the placement requirement of the industries sector wise then it can be linked with the training batches in wage employment.

• For the purpose of self-employment all the leading EDP institutions should come together and do a concrete plan for it. EDP is best model to address unemployment because through it there is a scope of 2 to 3 persons get employment in one venture. Hence one SSC should be created to address this requirement of linking EDP training and the Banking institutions which is a loan disbursement agency.
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