Context
It is expected that more than 250 million young people will join the Indian labour market in the next 15 years. Sustainable economic development and job creation for skilled labour is thus at the top of the political agenda. The Indian Government recently launched the initiatives ‘Make in India’ and ‘Skill India’ to support the training of up to 400 million people by the year 2022.
India’s ambition to become a globally leading manufacturing hub requires sufficient, qualified workers. However, the Indian vocational education and training (VET) system does not adequately provide the quantity and quality of a skilled workforce that would meet the demands of the advancing industry.
In order to adjust supply and demand, India’s government promotes the active involvement of enterprises for achieving cooperative, workplace-basedVET. Acknowledging the advantages of the German VET model that is mainly driven by the private sector, the Indian Government has expressed interest to incorporate elements of the German system to the Indian VET context.
Objective
Actors of the public and private sectors work together to achieve conditions conducive to create and improve cooperative, workplace-based VET in India.
Approach
The programme applies the following approaches:
- Advising and guiding local cooperations between public entities and private sector organisations, such as chambers and associations, in order to jointly implement cooperative, workplace-based trainings in six industrial clusters: the automotive compontent cluster in Aurangabad, the electronics cluster in Bangalore, the energy efficient construction cluster in Bhiwadi, the green energy cluster in Pune, the retail and e-commerce cluster in Mumbai and the life sciences cluster in Hyderabad. It is desired to involve at least 100 companies during the programme term and across the selected clusters.
- Establishing a basic framework for the implementation of cooperative VET by providing advisory to public and private stakeholders at central, state and local level. Stakeholders are the National Skill Development Corporation, the Directorate General of Training, Sector Skill Councils, State Skill Development Missions, as well as regional and local Business Membership Organisations.
- Enhancing dialogue mechanisms between the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), other government entities and the private sector to allow for a common understanding and joint coordination.
- Documenting the experiences of implemented cooperative VET in order to promote replication in other regions and industrial sectors.
- Applying a gender-sensitive approach to systematically consider the needs of both women and men.
Expected Achievements
The programme is expected to achieve the following results:
- Improved vocational skills of graduates:
The vocational skills of graduates who participate in cooperative trainings will improve noticeably. It is expected that the enhanced skill-sets of graduates will correspond better to the requirements of the recruiting enterprises.
- Documented replicable VET-models:
Based on the experiences gained with cooperative, workplace-based VET, replicable models will be documented. The models will outline the processes, procedures and instruments that were used to implement cooperative VET in the six industry clusters. This will allow upscaling of gender-responsive, cooperative VET measures in other regions and sectors.
- Mainstreamed cooperative VET:
The experiences gained during programme implementation will support the MSDE in concretising its strategic and systematic framework that helps to mainstream cooperative VET. The results will also provide evidence-based impetus for policy dialogue and strategy adaptations related to VET, such as the Indian Scheme of Dual System of Training.
- Promoted gender relevant aspects within VET:
The gender-sensitive programme design and implementation will sensitise decision makers to mainstream gender relevant aspects when replicating cooperative VET.
- The programme will contribute to India's goal of preparing 400 million people for the labour market by the year 2022.