‘Opportunities mould us’
Col HS Sethi, director, Skills Development Initiative, CII, on why corporates are being drawn to that sector

By Meha Mathur
A new life has been infused into the skill development sector, particularly the Industrial training institutes (ITIs), with a novel PPP scheme and a provision of Rs 2.5 crore loan. The industry is excited about this scheme. Giving direction to this scheme is the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Col Harmit Singh Sethi (Retd), the director and head, Skills Development Initiative, CII, is spearheading the Skills Mission to achieve the CII vision of ‘Making India the Skills capital of the World’. Col Sethi has over 20 years of experience in organisational dynamics within the Armed Forces, commerce and industry.
He is also representing CII at various national-level councils, including National Vocational Training (NCVT), National steering Committee on upgradation of it is and ILO Committee on development of National Policy on Vocational Training. He is an HR professional, qualified with a postgraduate diploma in personnel management and industrial relations from Symbiosis, Pune and postgraduate certificate in human resource management from XLRI, Jamshedpur.

In an interview to Educare, he discusses why the industry and corporate world is taking skilling need of Indians seriously now. Excerpts:

Why has skill development as a movement gained such a momentum in the last few years?
As the rest of the world begins to gray, India is in a unique position to provide the much-needed manpower to other countries, and hence become the skills capital of the world. This is what we call the demographic dividend. But to enjoy the dividend, the manpower will have to be trained. It will have to match the skills level of the other countries. Otherwise, rather than dividend, it will turn out to be a disaster.

There’s also the other need. Less than 10 per cent of the populace today is working in the organised sector today. The remaining populace is in the unorganised sector. Skill imparting, coupled with equipping this vast number with life skills, will enable them to be self-employed, and to serve the people within their environs.

As the person heading the skills development initiative, what is your vision for the skills infrastructure of the country?
Mapping of needs, followed by needs-based training. I also see that a proper certification is essential to the programme. The other essential part is centralised monitoring of manpower pool, so that there is movement of skills based pool across the country based on need.

Do you think that considering the size of the population, the entire population avail of the benefits of the initiative underway?
We need to do a mapping of the skill requirement within a geographical region and offer those skills. Also, to cover the entire landscape, corporates will have to join us in a big way.

Attitude of society towards manual labour affects better wages for skills workers. How can a better wage environment be facilitated.

Looking at the infrastructure that’s coming up, if today a person with City Guilds accreditation approaches me, I will surely hire him, no matter his being more expensive. Because with that certification comes a certain assurance that he will be able to perform that task better.

What is the motivating factor behind corporates joining the movement?
The corporates are seeing it as a CSR initiative. Then, there is also the pain at the condition of many of the skill development institutes. Corporates are pained to see that the institute, built on acres of land and at times on a prime property, could be utilised productively, but is not being used upto its optimum potential.

It is extremely important to identify the stakeholders — not just for the cause and effect — but for congregated delivery of skills. Who are they? Why are they important? What can they do? And how should they contribute towards this national agenda, are crucial questions, answers for which are much needed for developing the Indian skills delivery model.

The wide array of initiatives undertaken by the stakeholders is encouraging and developing partnerships is the key. Gainful use of resources and expertise available within the country is much needed to ensure that the growth is inclusive and positive for the masses.

For the industry it is again a wonderful mix of challenge and opportunity. Challenge, because the numbers are humungous and inclusive growth is a must. Challenge, because industry needs to supplement efforts of government and civil society and provide equal employment opportunities to the socially and economically under-privileged. Challenge, because a large pool of manpower is not employable, the curricula is obsolete and there is a mis-match between skills required by the market and those imparted by the country’s higher and vocational education system. A challenge because it is not only a legislative imperative, but also a business need of the industry.

The opportunity lies in the problem. The realisation of the problem and availability of human resources in abundance is an asset for the industry. We need to leverage this opportunity to address social, political and economic manpower needs. We need to reorganise initiatives for a sustainable and inclusive growth model. Whether we route it through HR, CSR or affirmative action practices, it is clear that focus has to be on creating self-sufficiency and quality.

What is the business model, that is exciting the corporates? How do they stand to gain monetarily? Because after all the 2.5 crore that has been sanctioned for each ITI is meant only for institute upgradation. And not every corporate that is entering the domain needs trained manpower directly in that particular skill?
The corporates realise that they are sitting on a mine of manpower. And as there is the realisation that the rest of the world is going to gray, India will have a pool of trained manpower to provide. So if they manage to train this pool, they will be able to generate revenue by providing manpower to the rest of the world.

Lack of trainers is pointed as a major problem. How can this problem be overcome?
The corporates will have to provide the trainers. That is the idea. It’s a long process and no doubt there will be shortfall of trainers initially.

It’s simple — give equal/more focus on train the trainers. Corporates should partner to create faculty development institutes. There should be mentor programmes for trainers as well. There should be more stress on upgradation of skills of the training providers. Again — global partnerships and programmes will help.