Skilling India: An Aspirational Challenge
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with 32 per cent. The placement rate is
lowest in Odisha at 12 per cent.
•
Sustainability of employment is a critical
issue; a large proportion of those placed
after the training with TP support do
not work several months later. Evidence
of short job tenure is also provided
by employers who report that many
newly hired leave their jobs after two to
three months of employment. Around
one-third does so because of other job
opportunities but others, according to
employers, leave because of low pay, dis-
tance from home or for family reasons.
•
Although all programmes aim at provid-
ing gainful employment, a large propor-
tion of trainees (28 per cent) indicate that
they do not intend to work after training,
but rather to pursue further studies. This
lack of motivation raises questions about
the adequacy of the selection process of
participants and also the value attached
to the jobs available at the end of training.
•
Skill development programmes give a
positive earnings premium: trainees who
have got a job earn on average about 21
per cent more than non-trainees (with
same age, education, marital status, state
of residence). There is a stronger effect on
women. They give access to better qual-
ity jobs (as measured by proxies, such as
a job contract, shorter work hours, and
access to pension plan).
•
Skill development programmes have
made a difference and contributed to
increase in the employability and earn-
ings of participants, and to give them
access to better quality jobs (even if most
jobs are still in the informal sector).
•
When programmes are considered
separately, positive employment and
earning’s effects are only observed for
NSDC, SDIS, STEP-UP. No impact could
be detected for RSETI and ASDP trainees.
•
Selection of training providers: Selection
is based on competition, mostly cost
with insufficient attention to quality of
offerings, and labour market demand.
Franchising is widely used and not sub-
ject to competition and quality control.
There is insufficient use of labour market
analysis to select courses and training pro-
viders. There is concentration of offerings
over a limited number of trades with high
variance in quality. At least two-thirds of
providers are located in urban areas and
the remaining in rural areas.
•
Assessment and certification: Large dif-
ferences across programmes are found,
not all mandate third-party assessments
and certification. Insufficient availability
of qualified assessors is an issue. Lower
cost andmore rapid process with training
providers carrying out assessments result-
ing in higher risk of quality compromise
and lack of standardisation of certificates.
•
Monitoring: Monitoring reports are
mainly used to claim reimbursements.
Verification of data is uncertain. Cases of
duplication in accounting of beneficiaries
are reported.
The study concludes that even if most
skill development programmes are found to
have positive labour market effects, expecta-
tions of their overall impact on the Indian
economy need to remain modest. Courses
are of short duration and cost is low. The
amount of human capital that can be pro-
vided through those programmes is likely to
remain modest. While these courses can be
a useful instrument to facilitate insertion in
the labour market, these cannot be expected
to yield huge productivity increases and
need to be complemented by other types of
human capital investments. Their targets
should be adjusted accordingly.
NSDC’s impact assessment
NSDC commissioned during 2014–15 an
impact assessment of its activities. The
specific objectives of the assignment were:
(a) study the impact of training on the liveli-
hood of the skilled candidates under NSDC,
(b) assess the effect of its training partners
on the skilling ecosystem.
NSDC mandated Deloitte to conduct
impact assessment of the skilling initiatives
in three regions, that is, North, South and
East. Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS)
carried out the study in west and north east
