Building Blocks
Skilling India is a national imperative, says Sanjay Shivnani

Profile
Sanjay Shivnani is an electrical engineer from REC, Rourkela, and completed his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. As President, Vocational Training at CL Educate Ltd, Sanjay has been instrumental in maintaining CL's rapid sales growth and enjoys deep relationships with decision makers across the Asian academic community. He currently heads CL’s Skill School initiative

Skill School
Skill School is CL Educate’s venture into formal vocational and skill education. This aims at enhancing the employability of the Indian workforce. It also aims to enrich various segments of the workforce, from urban college students, to the rural self-employed.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Last week I visited rural skill development centres in two backward districts of Orissa. Besides the obvious, I was glad to note the not-so-obvious. Entrepreneurship, especially in challenging circumstances, must depend on creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, and in such circumstances one must look, figuratively speaking, in the dark corners of the room rather than in the areas that are well lit.

While the obvious is, well, obvious: Rural youth learning to use computers, gaining skills to become electricians or mechanics, or training to work in hotel kitchens, etc. I was also glad to note the other emerging story. The trainers were young degree or diploma holders from local institutes. It was heart warming to meet with an engineering graduate who is now contributing to the skill effort in general, and more importantly, has procured gainful and sustainable employment for himself.

It leads me to think of all the upsides that this small-yet-powerful example displayed. The just-graduated engineer may have never found gainful employment upon graduating from a so-called Tier III engineering college. However, he chanced upon this teaching opportunity and is earning a livelihood and heartily participating in India’s growing consumerism, adding wealth to those below and above him. The great Indian smorgasbord of consumer durable, non-durable, and FMCG companies are all benefiting from this young person’s propensity and opportunity to earn and spend. It's a perfect win-win for at least these two stakeholders. The point that I am trying to drive home here is plain and simple; such skilling initiatives right at the bottom of the pyramid across India’s length and breadth can have a tsunami effect on India’s economy.

If I owned a biscuit manufacturing company, besides the traditional approach to business viz building the brand, stocking the channel, ensuring pull-and-push, connecting with consumers, and ensuring that all the functions of a normal business are working full steam, I’d also take time out and invest in skill training initiatives that will probably ensure a lifetime pipeline of future customers who will have the needs and wants - and more importantly - the means to consume my biscuits. Doesn’t this make sense, if not today then at least for the day after?

India stands at the threshold of a great opportunity; amidst a sea of nations and economies that are growing old, our country is ‘young’: About 700 million young. This is more than adequate human capital to run all the factories, banks, clinics, and malls in the entire Western world. This is more than just ‘manpower’; it is human capital and it can be harnessed and deployed to generate large amounts of benefits for all stakeholders. This mass movement can fundamentally alter the future of this country. Much like Parliament aggressively discusses the Lokpal issue, or for that matter, any other political or economic issue, the skilling agenda for India must be the single most important agenda for discussion and action.

OPPORTUNITIES
While the government takes its time to figure out what is really important and what is not, private industry must take up the mantle and do needs to be done. If corporate India can become the centre of gravity for a universal skill training and education movement, it could ignite the economy!

From this perspective, the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) is doing seminal work in catalysing the disparate components of this national agenda. The NSDC is a government initiative at the very highest level and that is probably good thinking. The system now needs to nurture the skilling agenda by putting in place some very basis structural systems such as financial inclusion, banking services reach, employment generation, micro financing, and entrepreneurship development.

So while one can espouse what the establishment or administration should do, one has to simultaneously address the learners’ dogma of going back to school, scepticism, and low Return on Education. Finally, programmes and initiatives like MNREGA and social security may need to be revisited. Are these in direct conflict with the Skilling India agenda?