Vocational Education & Training – At a Glance
Worldwide, young people are three times more likely than their parents to be out of work – said a report recently released by Mc Kinsey Center for Government.
According to International Labor Organization estimates over 75 million young people are unemployed across the world. Paradoxically, 57% of the employers worldwide are not able to find entry-level skilled workforce.
The story is no different for India, which continues to be at the epicenter of the world for its youth talent force. The immense talent scarcity industry faces today requires out-of-the-box thinking, decoding issues related to skills access, affordability and accreditation – a kind of Blue Ocean Strategy to look at the demographic dividend from a whole new perspective.
Vocational Education in India aims to develop skilled manpower through diversified courses to meet the requirements of mainly the unorganized sector & to instill self employment skills in people through a large number of self employment oriented courses. Vocational Education is imparted through industrial Training Institutes & polytechnics.
55% of Indians [550 million people] are below 30 years of age & 70% of Indians [700 million people] are below 35 years of age. While Indians need IITs, IIMs & Medical Colleges, the real requirement is for primary education, secondary education & vocational training. India’s population needs basic education facilities, while at least 90% need to get into some sort of vocational training after high school.
In a country like Germany, the universities are empty.
In fact, they are free for any one to join (even foreigners are welcome) because very few students want to study there.
University education does not necessarily prepare the youth for life, also, there is no guarantee of a job after a university degree.
One of the weakness of Indian Education system is that it does not give due importance to vocational education. As a result, there is a mismatch between the skilled manpower required & skilled manpower available. Every year we produce millions of graduates who do not have the specific skill sets required by the market (only 5% of India’s existing workforce has received skill training). If this trend continues, it would hurt our economic growth in the long run. To change this situation, first we need to change our mindset. In India, people are obsessed with attaining graduation degree & generally look down upon vocational education. This has resulted in a situation where on the one hand, there are scores of unemployed graduates & on the other hand , there is a huge shortage skilled manpower.
It is for this reason that 80% to 90 % of the youth, after standard 10th, opt. for vocational training where they work part time [at minimum wages], as apprentices, with industries and trade for two to four years and study simultaneously in a vocational training institute, for learning the theory and acquiring the relevant knowledge.
FOLLOW US
© 2014 by Edutech Skills Solutions. Proudly created by edutechskills.com