The job of an aircraft maintenance officer is to ensure that a plane is safe to fly. But can this crucial task be learnt in a span of 15 days? Hairdressing too is an art, something that requires precision – one odd snapping of the scissors can make a lot of difference. Can this art be mastered in five days? Mobile robotics is more messy than Spiderman’s web. Can it be aced in a week’s time?
If you ask the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), which reports to the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, one can master either of these skills in a fortnight’s time.
But why and how? Welcome to India Skills 2018, a national-level competition organised by Skill India. This competition, in which over 400 students participated, was held between 2 and 6 October in Delhi’s Aerocity. Prior to the competition, participants, mostly students, were provided customary (read advanced) training in different skills at centres across the country.
A Genuine Effort or a PR Exercise for the Modi Government?
The NSDC would like us to believe that most of these students learnt the basics at these training sessions and boot camps conducted ahead of the national-level competition. But most candidates The Quint spoke to said they were students of private or government colleges, who had learnt most of their skills either on their own or through professors at college.
Curiously only 25 of the over 141 participants The Quint spoke to at India Skills 2018, were enrolled in courses offered directly under the aegis of the Skill India Mission. These courses were conducted either at Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendra or at ITI centres across the country – all of which fall under the purview of the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship. The remaining 116 students were either from private or government colleges.
If 141 is taken as the sample size, then only 18% of 400 participants at the competition were from Skill India-run centres.
However, prior to the competition in Delhi, all the students – whether from Skill India-affiliated centres or from private/government colleges – received customary training from government and private institutes sponsored by Skill India for only a period of 5-15 days.
What is Skill India?
But before we deep-dive into the competition and the problems associated with it, let’s first take a look at the Skill India Mission.
Kushal Bharat, Kaushal Bharat (a skilled India is a successful India) – that was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision in July 2015 when he launched the Skill India Mission. A separate Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MDSE) was established, and several agencies under it were tasked with training one crore people by 2022.
Since then, the government has spent more than Rs 2,885 crore and even overshot its skilling target in 2015. This over-achievement could have something to do with the fact that participants were offered a cash incentive of Rs 5,000 to Rs 12,000 for completing the course.
There are three broad kinds of Skill India centres that fall under the purview of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. These are Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) centres, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendra (PMKK) and Industrial Training Institutes (ITI).
There are over 2,701 PMKVY centres across India (as of April 2017), which jointly offer over 219 courses. The number of ITIs stands at 14,312.
Pre-competition Training Too Brief?
While the low participation of students from Skill India-run centres raises questions on the efficiency of the Skill India Mission, the duration of training imparted to participants from private or government institutions outside Skill India’s jurisdiction too seems inadequate.
Sixteen-year-old Mohammed Shinan, for instance, received only seven days of training ahead of his nationals in 3D Game Art. “I learnt most of my skills on the web and through YouTube videos,” he asserted.
Views of Shinan, who hails from Kerala’s Kasaragod, are echoed by Aryan Oberoi, who took part in the mobile robotics competition. The 21-year-old fourth-year BTech student from Bengaluru said although the Skill India competition pushed him to learn more, most of what he knows today is the result of training from his college professors.
“I couldn’t go for the training sessions as they were too expensive. The advanced training before nationals took place at MIT, Pune, for just four days.” Despite all the shortcomings, Oberoi, said he’s improved a lot from when he first entered the competition. “When I look back at the robot I made at the beginning of the competition, I feel I’ve come a long way,” he added.
‘Learnt Most From College’: Floristry Participant
Nikita Ashok Kadam, who studies at a private fashion design institute in Mumbai, took part in the floristry competition. She was interested in fashion designing, but had taken up floristry after her teacher encouraged her to participate in India Skills.
She received twelve days of training prior to the national-level competition, during which she learnt “the importance of time-management.” Most of her training in floristry was undertaken by teachers at her fashion design institute, which is not affiliated to Skill India.
Why So Few Students From Skill India-Run Centres?
But why were there so few students from Skill India-affiliated centres at India Skills?
When managers at the Visual Merchandising arena were asked this question, they said that there’s no such course run under the Skill India Mission. Out of the six students in this segment, not even one came from Skill India-affiliated centres or institutes.
A similar picture was seen in segments like Jewellery, Baking, Graphic Design Technology, Industrial Control, Wall and Floor Tiling, Cabinet Making, IT Network Systems Administration, Floristry and Landscape Gardening and Mechatronics.
Rahul Barhate and his teammate Shwetankk Bhalaykar took part in the Mechatronics competition, which had six teams – none of which had a single candidate from a Skill India-affiliated institutes.
“Pune has Skill India centres, but they don’t have a course in Mechatronics. Probably, it could be due to lack of infrastructure,” said Barhate, who’s an employee with Volkswagen India.
From PMKVY to India Skills
Poonam Kumari, who participated in the hairdressing competition, is one of the 25 participants who had undergone vocational training at a Skill India centre run by the NSDC. Kumari was trained at a Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana centre in Bihar’s Patna for three months, following which she received a certificate.
“I was always interested in hair dressing and was told about the PMKVY centre by a friend. There, I learnt the basics, which helped me to reach the national level,” she added.
Kumari, however, felt the course-time can be extended beyond three months. When asked about placements, she said the Patna PMKVY centre has promised to get her a job. Kumari was the only PMKVY candidate in the hairdressing segment, which had nine competing candidates in total.
Govt’s Skill India Goal Short-sighted?
Out of six candidates in the Information Network Cabling segment, two had successfully completed courses from separate PMKVY centres. One of them, Ritu Raj, learnt the basics of technical computing and peripheral at a PMKVY centre in New Delhi.
Raj was happy that he was able to complete a course based on theoretical and practical experience without paying a single penny. But there’s a small problem with the course – it focuses only on the basics of the subject.
The government is now focusing on the basics of each course under the Skill India programme, it must introduce advanced levels of training, said Raj.
How Successful Has the Mission Been?
According to a Business Standard report, data shows that till September 2017, only 72,858 out of a total of 6,00,000 candidates trained under various NSDC programmes were placed, bringing the placement rate to around 12 percent.
Yet, an official NSDC report published in February 2018 claims that over 5.98 lakh candidates trained under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana have been placed. The report says that under PMKVY, over 13 lakh candidates have been trained, of these over 9 lakhs have been certified till February 2018.
The National Skills Development Programme 2015 has set a goal of training 400 million people. But isn’t the target too high to achieve? Citing a government-appointed committee’s report, IndiaSpend says this goal is “too large, unnecessary and unattainable.”
Further, under the NSDC, 40 Sector Skill Councils were set up to develop programmes and assess students trained under them. Citing the government-appointed committee’s report, IndiaSpend says Sector Skill Councils proposed “huge physical targets” of training and certifying institutions and people – both trainees and trainers – on an “arbitrary basis,” without formulating a sectoral labour market information system and sectoral skill development plan.”
The funds to be allocated to each sector were dependent on these training targets. As a fallout of these high training targets, the quality of “training, assessment and certification suffered,” the committee report said.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)