New Delhi: The government is building a labour market information system to bring all stakeholders on one platform and match skills to jobs, as part of its ambitious skills development programme, S. Ramadorai, chairman of the National Skill Development Agency (NSDA) and skill adviser to the Prime Minister, said in an interview.
India aims to train 500 million people in vocational skills for jobs in sectors ranging from pharmaceuticals to retail and automobiles, and alleviate a shortage of labour.
But the skill mission faces a paucity of funds. Ramadorai, who is also vice-chairman of Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), said in an interview the government intends to tap the corporate social responsibility, or CSR, provisions in the new companies law as well as multilateral agency funding for skill development. Edited excerpts:
What’s the focus for 2014?
The most important thing for us is to think ahead, plan ahead and deliver on the ground all the initiatives we have taken. So if you see the skills development agenda of the government, skilling our youth, giving employment and entrepreneurship is absolutely critical. And there is a systemic national-level change that’s happening to catalyze and increase the number of skilled professionals.
The government has created a framework though the NSDA, NSDC (National Skill Development Corporation) and various ministries and state governments. The next agenda is that if I am a youth and I want to start a vocational trade or have prior vocational trade, I should be able to take that and get some credit and then establish an equivalence to an 8th grader or 10th grader (formal education streams). So equivalence, both horizontal and vertical, is being attempted through a National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF).
A lot of your skill partners are providing training in unorganized sector, but the question is how to map employment to unorganized sector trades, and how to track it?
Doesn’t matter. The level of competency through NSQF and through the sector skill councils to set the occupation standards has a mechanism to recognize that you are in level 1 or level 10. The organized sector or unorganized sector is purely for a type of (job) how they are contracted or not contracted. But their competency can be measured by a certification process. The essence of the matter is recognition of the prior learning.
You understand the talent demand-supply equation in industries. In the last couple of years, the skill pool has increased but there is a lack of jobs. How do you see that and where do you see the skill mission going forward?
What we have done through NSDC is skill gap studies across the country through third-party people. The objective of the skill gap study is: what is the particular skill that’s in demand in a particular region of the country. If a region is seeing a lot of construction activity or hospitals being built, then these studies bring the supply-demand gaps. Immediately, the suppliers or training providers are told that here are the skills that are needed in this part of the country. That’s where the job demand and job supply is matched.
We are building a labour market information system which completely maps the supply versus demand needs. Then, all the players like training provider, assessment or certification agencies or a content provider, job seekers or job providers can come together. That’s what we are trying to go after.
Please elaborate on the labour market information system.
We have started registering all skill providers in the country. Then we will have all content providers for those skills; third who are all the certification agencies and jobs, etc. All will come together. We are putting those pieces together to create the database, and connecting all those will happen (through this system). If you are a youth in Delhi region looking for certain skill training, you should be able to see the providers and (where the job is)... It’s (the system) an evolving one but portions of it will be available this year only.
Last year, you (the skill mission) fell short of achieving targets. Why did it fail in the initial years? What about this year?
This is an important issue. There are multiple agencies doing skill development in the country through various schemes of different ministries or states or NSDC. I think the availability pool is 12-13 million per year but it does not mean a skilled pool. First, the need is to convert availability pool to skilled pool and then provide jobs. You have to create the capacity for providing the skills. Scale-up takes time. Not that you can scale up overnight. I think the build-up to that capacity with the right infrastructure and the right enabling environment, the coordination agencies, the PPP (public-private partnerships), and finally, the outcomes (take time). I think the demand side, or employer, should be clear about: what kind of jobs I am looking for in my organization. Then there is a very big component of small and medium scale enterprises, which create the maximum number of jobs. So they also have to come along with the skill building exercise. So here advocacy forms a critical parameter.
So you are saying companies need to articulate their job demand to skill agencies; second, there is poor demand for skill courses.
They (companies) have to completely articulate what they require. One is demand-supply mismatch; second, creating jobs closer to their homes; third, some of the people may be mobile and then preparing them and making sure they are absorbed as per requirement of jobs. We have to look at it in totality. They (firms) are articulating through Sector Skill Councils (SSCs).
A fresh gazette notification has said all SSCs need to be licensed by the newly formed NSDA. So what will happen to the 20-odd skill councils that NSDC has approved?
I don’t think the old ones will be licensed once again. There is a dialogue that is beginning to take place between NSDA and NSDC to exactly articulate with right clarity. Gazette notification has just come and we are setting up the first set of meetings and address how to bring the skill councils under the overall eco-systems. But none of the past decisions or deliberations that have (been) taken are not going to be simply said that they are not valid. Whatever is good must be retained.
You wear different hats in the industry, government and in its skill mission; critics say there is a conflict of interest.
When you are building an ecosystem, then it’s not a conflict of interest. If I had to convince a job provider, then I have to be a part of them. If we have to take a decision to encourage training providers, then I have to wear that hat. So the conflict of interest comes when you have a financial consideration. Conflict of interest is when you have a specific agenda. Here is a national agenda to skill the people, get them jobs, make them entrepreneurs. And connecting all of these requires this kind of situation. The second part of it is—to manage the time, you need a team. The biggest opportunity I will focus is on building a team to support all these initiatives. It’s the team not the individual that makes it happen.
The general election is coming and how do you see the skill mission getting affected?
These are institutionalized framework. I think irrespective of any political change or whatever in a democratic environment, institutions survive the test of time.
The skill mission has not received enough funds from the government. Do you have enough money to skill 500 million people?
There are a couple of things. The disbursement of funds by NSDC through its board for the next 10 years, and to achieve a target of 150 million (people), is one of it, where the funding may not come today as disbursement of funds happen depending on performance year after year. The second part is the different schemes like Star scheme or Udaan scheme of the government on specific purposes. Then the individual ministries have their own funds…not necessarily through NSDC route. The fourth is private sector participation like CSR initiatives… a certain percentage of it can be allocated to skill as well. I think a collection of things will happen. If the question is: with the fund allocations today we can skill 150 to 200 million, then the answer is no. But do I need the entire money today, then the answer is also no. There are multiple ways to look at the problem. Also, the multilateral agencies are also being looked at for funding.
There is infighting between labour and human resource development ministries over skill education. As the head of the overarching body (NSDA) how do you look at it?
I don’t think it’s infighting. I may have differing points, which in a democracy we must respect. The responsibility all of us carry is how to synthesize divergent opinions to a commonality of purpose. That’s our job. I think diversity and difference of opinion should be encouraged and there is nothing wrong in it. That’s why the NSQF aims to synergize all the activity of all the ministries under a single framework.
