India needs U.S.-style community colleges and a new education infrastructure.
By Syed Iqbal Hasnain
SEATTLE: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the National Skill Development Mission in Delhi on July15, 2015, with great fanfare. Announcing the initiative as part of “Skill India,” the premier said that if China could become the global manufacturing hub, then India could become world’s human resources capital.
Surely, Mr. Prime Minister, but not through the outdated and dysfunctional Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), which are at the center of your current plan to educate and train Indian workforce.
Courses taught in ITIs were developed about half a century ago mainly to impart basic skills in specific trades and most of their teaching staff are half literate. They mainly run courses and training programs — which may vary from one year to three years — for mechanics, electricians and plumbers. ITIs recently added courses in computer hardware and word processing.
If India is serious about educating and providing skills to the country’s youth — 65 percent of the country’s population is under the age of 35 — to compete in the global economy, a new paradigm in education is needed.
One model India should take a close look at is community colleges in the United States, which
teach various skills through courses needed in globalized economy. They are a unique system that provides skill-based education relevant for both the old and new economies. Community colleges create highly skilled human resources and are the secret behind America’s trained workforce.
India’s Ministry of Human Resource Development should establish autonomous community colleges across India in large numbers under Public-Private Partnership. It should use open-access model with low tuition fees. Students can do credit courses or non-credit courses under continuing education model.
The credit courses will qualify a student to enroll in regular universities after completing two years in community colleges. While, non-credit courses prepare an individual to get a job after acquiring particular types of skill sets. In these colleges, people can enroll as full time or part time and complete the course. It provides enormous flexibility and help in acquiring required skill to an unskilled person.
Mr. Prime Minister, kindly reflect why a majority of Indian youths lacks in relevant skills if our ITIs are great centers like Indian Institutes Technology? Inconvenient truth is that ITI courses have no relevance in 21st century world and must be closed down.
A new education infrastructure, with community college-like institutions at the core of it, need to be created to impart new skills which are required to succeed in today’s global economy.
The concept of community college is not totally new to India. Under the Manmohan Singh-Obama education initiative, 200 pilot colleges, with 500 students had been planned. But it needs to be taken to the next level.
Nothing on ground will change in India, as long as the bureaucracy is given responsibility to develop the new program and link the Indian economy to the global economy. The country has to hire new generation experts in education so Indian economy could be benefitted.
During Rajiv Gandhi’s period many missions were launched with similar fanfares, among them, groundwater mission, vegetable oil mission and the Ganga cleaning mission. All missions were doomed after a few years and no one remembers them now.
Similarly, the National Skill Development Mission will be doomed soon. After a year or so, if the officials in charge were queried, they will show you a huge database of poorly trained youths with low skill.
In the present globalized and interlinked economy, jobs are available in a number of service sector areas. To name a few, fashion and costume designing, hospitality, health sciences, animation, data analytics and cloud computing.
If today’s youths are taught courses in relevant skills in these areas, they will be ready to compete in global as well as Indian job markets. As you know Mr. Prime Minister, jobs are no longer country-specific or region-specific. They may be anywhere in the world, if one has the skill-set to perform a particular type of job, he or she will get it. Exhibit A is India’s IT services sector, which caters to global market from places such Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Gurgaon.
China uses the expertise of its U.S. diaspora very intelligently. Beijing takes the advice of successful U.S.-based Chinese American entrepreneurs and academics. Based on the feedback from its diaspora leaders, Beijing has set up working groups and developed institutions. Why is India reluctant in using skill of its own people who are ready to help Indian economy?
Mr. Prime Minister, you have a lot of friends in the Indian American community who work for U.S. community colleges and some are holding senior positions. Before launching your mission on Skill Development, you could have consulted them to develop a road map for skill-based courses. But, like your many predecessors, you have fallen in the snake pit of bureaucracy, as the unveiling of the National Skill Development Mission clearly shows.
(The writer is a consultant on education and climate change, based in Seattle. He is a former Vice-Chancellor of University of Calicut, Kerala, and Professor of Environmental Sciences at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.)
6 Comments
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Let us see what is the spirit of National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) and how it is being implemented in India through University Grant Commission. There is no big difference in establishing new Community Colleges and setting up of Polytechnics, ITIs / other technical skill development institutions. Professor Husnain’s point has merits. We have to redraft our post high school education policy to integrate the National Skill Development Mission launched by our Prime Minister Shri Modi Ji.
You american thendi. You will always forsee these only that is why you are living there. do you have the courage to write these type of things about america. You will be hanged and no body will know that too. Shame on you
I see merit in your suggestions Syed Iqbal Hasnain, but at the same time would like to add:
– Community college with global standards is 100% great idea but how would one choose the apt locations in rural and semi rural areas and on what basis?
– What about mobilizations? In unorganized sector people opt for courses based on social influence and peer pressure. Large scale mentoring is still an untouched corner.
– How would one ensures that indeed the educational service is delivered to expected individuals at right time and place?
-How can we track trainees incremental productivity?
Have written similar post on this:
https://aindrasystems.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/how-will-india-train-40cr-people-by-2022-under-skill-development-initiative-2/
Twitter: @AindraSystems
This is absolutely true. The problem is that colleges and universities are “managed” by the UGC and the undergraduate community colleges would be appropriated by the AICTE as their turf like ITIs. The value of community college education is the possibility of transfer of credits to college courses after job experience, and lateral entry of those who want to update their skills and make them more relevant for the global market.
As long as we have two agencies wanting to control their institutions, the introduction of a Community college system would be impossible. Government has to re-vamp the post secondary education sector. Sharada Nayak
Good points. These are the points we have been stressing to the political leadership of India since 2011 – to no avail. Singh’s government and the Modi government have had the opportunity to pull our expertise in to help get this off the ground, but nothing will happen, the problem will persist, and India’s underemployed and unemployed will either resort to extremism or pick-up the Naxalite AK-47.