Context
India is one of the youngest nations worldwide and has the largest working-age population in the world. Every year, more than 15 million young people enter the labour market. These facts combined with the country’s immense economic development over the past 10 years have nurtured India’s ambition to become a globally leading manufacturing hub.
At the same time, India’s industries are facing an acute shortage of skilled workers. Recent analyses project that this shortage will amount to more than 130 million workers by the year 2022. What is more, only 3% of India’s working-age population has undergone any kind of formal training, and the mismatch between the skill sets that are available in the labour market and those that are in demand is growing.
To address these challenges, the Government of India has made it a priority to rapidly scale-up skill development programmes across the country and to improve their quality by actively involving the private sector in their design and implementation. This endeavour requires partnership and close coordination between a vast range of actors.
Objective
The number of adolescents and young adults who benefit from the improved quality of cooperative vocational education and training (VET) is increased in selected clusters.
Approach
The programme follows a cluster approach to pilot models of cooperative VET at currently eight locations all over India. A "cluster" is defined as a group of companies from a specific sector in a specific region which share a common challenge or goal. In each of the clusters, the project works closely with a chamber or industry association and decides together with their member companies which model of cooperative VET best suits their needs. The selected model is then implemented in collaboration with interested vocational schools and relevant public sector actors and accompanied by intensive capacity development measures. Special emphasis is placed on gender-sensitive approaches and the systematic consideration of the needs of women and men at all levels of implementation.
To ensure that the newly introduced models of cooperative VET are firmly established in the long term, the project provides advisory services to the governments of individual federal states as well as the Indian Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) at the federal level. In doing so, the programme focuses on introducing quality standards in the training of vocational school instructors and in-company trainers on the one hand, and on upscaling and replicating successful models of cooperative VET in additional regions and sectors on the other hand. By promoting cross-cluster exchange, the programme supports the development of concrete reform proposals which aim at improving the legal framework conditions for cooperative VET. These reform proposals are submitted to the MSDE for consultation and thus contribute to systemic change.
Results
The programme expects to achieve the following results:
- Active engagement of private sector organisations:
The cluster approach allows micro-, small- and medium-size enterprises (MSMEs) as well as large-scale enterprises to co-define structures and processes that help to meet their demand for skilled workers. In collaboration with the responsible public sector actors at the cluster, state and national levels, private sector organisations thus actively contribute to the design and implementation of cooperative VET courses. This will improve the relevance of VET in the Indian education system and ensure that the skill-sets of cooperative VET graduates will align with the requirements of the recruiting industries.
- Improved quality of cooperative VET:
The programme works closely with other projects in the GIZ India country portfolio to capacitate vocational school principals, vocational school instructors and in-company trainers and to ensure that school- and workplace-based training modules are well designed and well-coordinated. Furthermore, the programme makes sure that all cooperative VET courses are aligned with India’s national skill development schemes. It is expected that these measures will improve the overall quality of cooperative VET and thus attract a larger number of adolescents and young adults to participate in cooperative VET courses.
- Replication and systemic change:
The learnings and experiences gained during programme implementation at the cluster level are documented and form the basis for reform proposals that are submitted to the federal governments as well as the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. These reform proposals provide evidence-based impetus for upscaling and replicating successful models of cooperative VET across other sectors and localities and inform policy dialogue and strategy adaptations related to cooperative VET.
- Gender mainstreaming in cooperative VET:
The programme systematically involves female trainers and principals, women entrepreneurs and female employers into the design and implementation of cooperative VET. Concrete recommendations for gender mainstreaming in cooperative VET furthermore are integrated into the reform proposals. These measures will sensitise decision makers to mainstream gender-relevant aspects when upscaling and replicating cooperative VET courses across the country.