Skill Vibes: Pause..Reflect..

The effectiveness of any skill development program heavily depends on the support provided to students throughout their journey.  An integral part of this support is skill counselling, which aims to guide and assist students during the mobilization, admissions, and assessments, including Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). Unfortunately, the current state of skill counselling in India leaves much to be desired. There is a significant shortage of dedicated counselling professionals who can provide the necessary guidance and support to students as they navigate the complex skill development landscape. This shortage becomes particularly evident during the mobilization, admission, and placement phases when students require accurate information about courses, career prospects, hiring practices, and the relevance of different programs to their goals.  Some of it can be offset by technology (kiosks, websites), or through print material(brochures, leaflets) but may not be able to rep...

T he Skilling Ecosystem continues to struggle to develop desired competencies for their trainers & trainees the lack of  which results in unreasonable failure rates and low placement percentages. The data made public by NSDC recently shows failure rates are more in the manufacturing sector as compared to the service sector job roles. Stakeholder at all levels are making positive contribution, however we still keep missing the goal by a big margin.  What are the possible reasons? There is no one specific reason but a host of them cutting across the "Skills Value Chain". Their combined effect keeps us away from the fundamental goal of enhancing Competencies. To discuss a few: a)  Setting up an ITI / Skill development center without linking it to the local and regional labour market survey, leading to a mismatch of demand and supply in the local area. Many times the focus is on choosing job roles with minimum investment disregarding the actual local requirements.  b...

T he ultimate beneficiary of the minimum wages is the workforce segmented into "unskilled, semi-skilled,  skilled and highly-skilled". Hence, ideally, the wage matrix must encourage the potential worker to up skill / re skill so be able to earn a higher wage to improve his / her quality of life.  Do minimum wages backed by the Code on Wages Act 2019, which has replaced the Minimum Wages Act, 1948; Payment of Wages Act, 1936; Payment of Bonus Act, 1965; and Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 really encourage skills development? Or there is a room for further improvement!! Just as a matter of interest, the minimum wages are calculated based on a complex matrix basis of a family of four members ie husband, wife, and two children below the age of 14 years. The husband is taken as 1 unit, wife as 0.8  and children as 0.6 each. Thus taking a family as 03 consumption units. There have been some suggestions lately to include parents also. The wage takes into account several parameters ...

I t is always the learner first. If we keep this in mind, we are less likely to go wrong in making the appropriate policy decisions. One contagious issue bothering the Indian skills eco-system is the decision to induct Multiple Awarding Bodies in addition to the Sector Skill Councils to certify all the qualifications available in the National Qualification Register (NQR). There is no denying that competition is good for the system provided the desirable result is a better-quality assured certification. On the contrary, unhealthy competition can be counterproductive.   The basic / fundamental that must not be lost sight of is the fact that all awarding bodies must follow the same set of rules to design, develop, validate, approve, deliver, assess, certify and monitored the qualification. It is also a fundamental that must not be tempered with is that the Awarding Bodies must design “their” qualifications. The emphasis is on “their” qualifications and not on “borro...

T he growth of the Indian hashtag Skills Development eco-system has been hectic. The space has swelled with people from different professions, many of them with passion for skills development and many just wanting to explore the new grounds. From Govt at all levels on one hand and Industry, Industry Associations, Sector Skill Councils, Training Centres, Trainers, Assessment Bodies, Assessors, Content writers and developers’ Educational institutes including Skill Universities on the other hand. It is natural for people to have varied understanding of fundamentals and principles. The lock-down to contain and fight hashtag COVID-19 has brought in a deliberate pause. This opportunity must be utilised to reflect on some fundamentals for a common understanding and cohesive outcomes in some taken for granted areas like:      (a) understanding the NSQF      (b) understanding and interpreting the Qualifications      (c) understanding the science...