Workshop participants’ views on strengthening vocational education and skill development in India

The fourth batch of “An orientation to skill development and vocational education in India” was a thought-provoking workshop, conducted on 21^st May 2022.  It was attended by the professionals from organizations like Apollo MedSkills, Indian Iron and Sector Skill Council (IISSC) and others.

The participants showed keen interest while discussing various critical issues in skill development and vocational education. This session was interactive and there was a good exchange of views. It was a one-to-one interactive session where everyone got to share their views on vocational education and skill development. We also conducted a few activities during the session to make it more engaging and for the final activity, we asked the participants to share a short writeup with their views on a few topics.

We are glad to share their views as expressed through a post-workshop activity:

Mr. K. Sudhakar Babu, Faculty (School of Energy and Environment), Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala (Punjab) shared his views on challenges in implementing vocational education/skills in India and how to overcome them.

Implementation of vocational education is proving to be difficult among shortages of machines, books, materials, and qualified staff and poor planning. There are six challenges that teachers face in imparting vocational education:

1. Disinterest and lack of motivation in teaching the assigned skills subjects
2. Lack of skills qualifications and industrial experiences
3. Meeting the needs of students with low academic grades which require extra teaching effort with high emotional intelligence
4. Difficulty in attending professional courses due to limited budget allocation, rotation system, and heavy workload
5. Difficulty in article writing task
6. Difficulty in using English as the medium of instruction

Vocational education is still not a preferred choice among students and parents. The reasons for the same is that general and vocational education systems operate as separate verticals with limited mobility between the two.”

Suggestions to overcome the challenges

• Make vocational education more structured by conducting a proper skills gap analysis and mapping of local opportunities to assign vocational courses relevant to a particular area.
• Ensure proper funding to vocational training institutes established and upgrade the existing infrastructure.

According to Mr. Valerian Lepcha, Indian Iron and Steel Sector Skill Council (IISSSC), there are various benefits of vocational education for the individual, the employers, society, the economy and the country.

Individuals

Vocational education helps an individual in theoretical means of learning as well as on the practical skills. This method of education is the best way a person can achieve success and furthermore earn a livelihood. It also determines a person’s true potential and also helps in shaping a person for all kinds of situations coming ahead, the main factor that vocational education contributes to an individual providing the placement opportunities to earn a livelihood.

Employers

Vocational education benefits an employer when he/she is seeking for individuals who are skilled in different trades, and can organize and manage the work, also an individual is assessed and certified by professional bodies and may have good experience through apprenticeship and other training programs which benefits the employer as a whole.

Society

Vocational education helps people from different societies gaining education at a lower cost, this form of training is available for people coming from all kinds of different societies without any barrier. If the person is skilled and wants to enhance himself or herself than this is the best platform, individuals who are dropouts coming from all kinds of society and can pursue this method of education and become skilled eventually growing into a successful person and giving back to the society.

Economy

The economy of a country depends upon how good the country has its import/export, manufacturing sector, production, population and various other related factors. Vocational education improves the skill of a person and reduces unemployment, the more the number of skilled people we create more employment opportunities come.

A skilled person will increase the quality and the rate of production, eventually increasing the economic growth of the country and hence benefitting to each and every individual of the country.

Country

With a better economy the country grows and becomes better. The demand and supply gap in various manufacturing sector needs to be fulfilled for this and with better skilled individuals the chances of the growth in industries becomes higher. Vocational education provides wide range of opportunities to each and every individual of a country regardless of what history the person holds.

As per the views expressed by Mr. Pankaj Suman Beck, Indian Iron and Steel Sector Skill Council (IISSSC) “we can improve the rural economy through vocational education and training by spreading awareness on the vocational education and various skill development courses which will give them an idea of training courses and direct them to a particular direction. Workshops can also be conducted on various education schemes to increase their knowledge and lastly, providing placements with good pay-scale will help them in meeting basic necessities of life and can also open entrepreneurship opportunities.”

He also says that we can implement various skill development courses for women which will not only help to push the rural scenario with skill but also have a good source of income and money flow in that area.

Also Read: What participants of the workshop say about improving rural economy through skill development https://nationalskillsnetwork.in/nsn-catalyse-03-what-participants-of-the-workshop-say-about-improving-rural-economy-through-skill-development/

Team NSN is glad to see such thoughtful responses from the participants of the workshop. We hope to continue our endeavours in catalysing new thought and action to strengthen the skill development and vocational education ecosystem in India.