MUMBAI: Despite its apparent packaging as a pre-poll carrot and legitimate concerns over it becoming a new fount of corruption, the Budget proposal to give Rs 10,000 to every person availing a certain standard of job readiness through government-registered entities also tacitly addresses critical shortcomings plaguing the skilling ecosystem, say subject and industry experts.
"It (the Rs 10,000 incentive) could be a game-changer for skill development," says Dilip Chenoy, MD and CEO of National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), the nodal body in charge of the government's drive to make 150 million Indian youth job-ready in various sectors by 2022. Besides incentivising the youth to partake of such job training, which pays for itself wholly or substantially, the proposal is likely to increase the comfort level for industry to hire more such candidates, adds Chenoy.
Companies have been lukewarm to hiring candidates trained by NSDC-affiliated entities because they felt the skilling curriculum, in which they had little say, fell short of their standards. According to Chenoy, sector councils, represented by industry, will now set training and exam standards for candidates to avail of the Rs 10,000 incentive and this new certification, which will carry more weight.
QUALITY ASSURANCE
This realignment is expected to set higher — and uniform — benchmarks for quality. "Earlier, the training institutes were giving their own certificates. Companies were not sure of the quality of such training," says Tahsin Zahid, CEO of GRAS Academy, a Noida-based skilling institute. "But with industry-endorsed certificates, it becomes a passport for candidates to access jobs." Adds Sanjay Kothari, convener, promotion, marketing and business development at the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council: "This certification will give more authenticity to the training and we should see more candidates getting placed." The government has allottedRs 1,000 crore towards this incentive for 2013-14, which means 1 million candidates can avail of this.
It has not yet announced how this amount will be distributed, raising concerns that institutes could collude with candidates for a cut of the award. Siddhartha Shankar of Drishtee, a training institute that offers skilling courses on micro-entrepreneurship for youth in rural India, says this fear is greater in smaller institutes that lack credibility.
However, he is not perturbed by the policy timing — about a year before general elections are scheduled. "Anything that benefits people is indirectly a vote catcher, like this scheme," says Shankar, president and director, business development.
"As long as the government is doing the right thing (as in this case), and gets votes, then democracy works well," adds Parth Shah, president of the Center for Civil Society, a Delhi-based educational think-tank, who likens the new policy to cash transfers.
The government set up NSDC in 2009 to fund private entities — through loans, equity and grants — to impart hard and soft skills to young Indians for entry-level jobs. Its target: make 150 million jobready by 2022.
DIFFICULT TARGET
NSDC-approved training partners are, however, way behind pace to achieve those targets. In close to three years of operations, they have trained about 0.36 million candidates, with a placement rate of about 70%.
In December 2012, the government cut this year's outlay for NSDC by Rs 1,000 crore. For 2013-14, the government has allotted Rs 500 crore to NSDC. Chenoy says, despite the funding cuts, NSDC's current corpus of Rs 2,000 crore is sufficient to meet its current commitments.
"There is no issue here," he says. Typically, NSDC's training partners provide skilling courses whose fee ranges from Rs 4,000 (for example, 3 months training in basic computer, retail sales and mobile repairing) to Rs 25,000 (one-year training in accounting, hardware and networking and software designing).
Gras Academy, which runs 50 centres in North India and has the capacity to train 30,000 students a year, says it is currently utilising only 70% of its capacity.
"We were finding it tough to get students to come in large numbers to pay for such courses," says Zahid. He adds that most candidates come from poorer sections of society and do not have the ability to pay. The Rs 10,000 incentive is effectively a course subsidy. "With this scheme, we hope to run over our capacity."
Shah says this scheme empowers students in more ways than one. Besides, bridge the funding gap, it will also allow students to "shop around for a better deal". So, if institute X is better than institute Y but costlier, the virtually assured Rs 10,000 gives a candidate some scope to cover costs and choose X over Y.
SKILL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The new certification too will amount to something more than it does at present. "We are a certificate-hungry country," says Rajiv Sharma, managing director of Empower Pragati, an NSDC skilling partner.
"People even at the bottom of the pyramid feel there is little dignity in opting for vocational training compared to a college degree." Adds Chenoy: "It is going to bring a huge change in mindset by creating aspirational value for vocational certification."
The certification will also change things for companies, feels R Panchapakesan, COO of Bartronics IndiaBSE -5.24 %, a technology provider for financial-inclusion services. "Industrytrained candidates will command a premium in the job market," he says. Adds Sharma of Empower Pragati: "This connection between the industry and skill training will become formalised through this scheme."
