Skilling India: An Aspirational Challenge
135
as an investment for its own developed
manpower, adopting skill development as a
significant component of their CSR efforts
and providing differential wages to skilled
workers and also incentivizing unskilled
persons to acquire skills.
Perspectives of training
providers
Six training providers were interviewed
as part of the discussions for this chapter.
While three are Pan-India skill providers
and the other three are confined to individ-
ual states. All of them have been providing
skill training for more than five years. They
largely provide grant based training courses
to students, mobilising funding from vari-
ous skilling programmes of the government.
About 10 per cent of the programmes are
paid programmes. While 50 per cent to 70
per cent of the programmes are placement
linked, the others are for upskilling. The
large training providers offer training in as
many as 16 sectors and 40 trades whereas
the small ones offer in three trades in one
sector. They are short term courses of two
to three months. They endeavour to provide
at least half the class hours as industrial on-
the-job-training. In the last two years, the
training providers are adhering toNSQF and
training content are approved by SSCs. The
councils insist on quality and standardisa-
tion for which industry acceptance is high.
Placement rates have been increasing in the
last two years.
The student age ranges between 18 to
35; though students dropout from school
8th standard onwards, parents don’t allow
students to go out for jobs till they are 18–20.
Industry also does not want to employ very
young labour and employ labour after the
age of 18 to be clearly outside the ambit of
law relating to child labour. Student selec-
tion is the biggest challenge being faced by
the training institutions. In some states the
acceptance of skill training among students
and industries is high; Andhra Pradesh is
an excellent state for skill training. In some
states students do not have employment
opportunities and the candidates need to
migrate. North-east students when they
work in plains find climate and food habits
difficult to adjust. In Assam there are lot of
migrants from neighbouring countries and
according to the training providers, they
want free support from the government and
do not want to work.
On account of the need to go to a distant
place for training and the need to migrate
after training for a job, enrolment of women
candidates in well paying high-skills train-
ing courses has been low. Government is
spending a lot of money for skilling but
students do not want jobs where they need
to do hard physical work. In some southern
states casteism is high and so students from
five to six districts are taken in one batch to
manage the social dynamics.
Awareness building on what to expect
from skill training, and also in jobs is key
part of initial counseling. Training institu-
tions also bring in employers to talk to pro-
spective students. Managing with a salary of
`
6000 to
`
7000 in metros is difficult. They
also identify industries where boarding,
lodging and subsidised food are provided
and cost deducted from salary. Salary is a key
issue, not many industries followminimum
wages and insufficient salary is one of the key
reasons for student dissatisfaction.
Training providers find that on an aver-
age within the first three months, 10 per cent
leave the job. Within six months about 25
per cent of the students move to other com-
panies. Lot of job hopping happens in the first
year. Students expect higher salary of
`
15,000
where as they are offered
`
8,000. This is one
of the major reasons for turnover. When
one person decides to leave, the others from
the batch/village also leave together. Though
work place adjustments, peoplemanagement
and anger management are taught in the
skilling course, industry feedback shows that
students often lack these skills.
The training providers have invested in
necessary infrastructure but also use infra-
structure andmachinery of ITI/Polytechnic.
