CORE plans to invest Rs. 2.25 billion in vocational education

Education company Core Education and Technologies Ltd plans to invest at least Rs. 225 crore (Rs. 2.25 billion) to open a chain of vocational education institutes across India to train some three million people over the next five years. “The company understands the existing skill gap in India and thus the market potential, said Sanjeev Mansotra,” Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Core Education.

“As an end-to-end solution provider, we would like to focus a lot on vocational education. We will invest some Rs. 225 crore (Rs. 2.25 billion) and expect a revenue between Rs. 550 crore (Rs. 5 billion) and Rs. 600 crore (Rs. 6 billion) by the end of five years from now,” Mansotra said. “India needs an additional 140 million skilled workers across industry segments,” Mansotra added.

Vocational training in India is a $20 billion business opportunity per year, according to a July 2011 report by Kotak Securities Ltd. Around 475 million people will need training by fiscal 2022, it said. Vocational education has also emerged as one of the top priorities for the Indian government as it seeks to meet the skilled manpower requirement of the world’s second-fastest growing major economy.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has set a target of training 500 million people by 2022 and the central government has already allocated Rs. 2,500 crore (Rs. 25 billion) to the national skill development fund since 2009-10. Besides, several ministries are also deploying resources for skilling India’s workforce.

Mansotra said Core Education will raise funds from three main sources — internal accruals, public-private tie-ups with government agencies and a possible loan from the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). An NSDC spokesperson said that the board is yet to take a final call on Core Education’s proposal. If the company ties up with NSDC it has to assure at least 80% placement.

Core Education may not adopt the franchise model for its educational institutes. It instead plans to set up 150 “company owned centres” across the country. Construction, automobile, healthcare, retail, hospitality, information technology (IT) and IT enabled services will be the key focus areas for the company.

“We will follow the source, train, place model by working closely with industry and government bodies,” Mansotra said. Skill training providers need to focus on quality education, said experts. “Skill is a huge challenge and this needs to be tackled on a mass scale without hampering quality,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder and vice-president of staffing firm Teamlease Services Pvt. Ltd. “Currently, we struggle to get enough right candidates. Our rejection rate is quite high.”

Source: Mint, April 20, 2012

Ministry sees window for skill development in telecom policy

The Department of Telecom (DoT) may join hands with the National Skill Development Council (NSDC) and the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to prepare a roadmap for skill development in the telecom sector, if the draft National Telecom Policy is implemented.

Also in the works is the formation of an apex body, supported by advisory groups comprising representatives from industry, academia and public sector units, to ‘oversee and to act as a guiding and enabling source for all aspects related to skill development in telecom field’. “… create an enabling framework in partnership with MHRD to periodically upgrade academic curriculum of telecommunications courses, which are aligned with the technological advancements in the sector for meeting the human resource requirement,” the policy document stated as one of its objectives.

Formed on a public private-partnership model, NSDC aims to promote skill development by catalysing creation of large, for-profit vocational institutions. Its main objective is to contribute about 30 per cent to the target of improving skill sets of 500 million by 2022. This will be achieved by fostering private sector initiatives in skill development programmes and providing viability gap funding. Mr. S. Ramadorai, former Chief Executive Officer of Tata Consultancy Services, is the advisor to the Prime Minister for the NSDC.

The draft document also places special emphasis on upgrading academic curriculum of telecommunication courses. This will be partly achieved by collaborating with premier educational institutes such as the Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs) and telecom institutes of excellence ‘for bridging the gap between research and academics and field problems’.

Education experts and analysts say that the curriculum for students of telecommunications engineering in most colleges is outdated. Though industry watchers have welcomed the moves proposed in the draft policy, they are waiting for specific details. The draft says that training institutes under the DoT and its other organisations will be developed as national schools of excellence.

Source: The Hindu Business Line, October 12, 2011

Centre to establish vocational education cell within CBSE

The Centre will establish a vocational education cell within the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) as per the revised scheme of Vocationalisation of Secondary Education, which includes imparting vocational education in Classes XI and XII. The revised scheme has been approved for implementation in the remaining period of the current Five-Year Plan.

It also envisages strengthening of the 1,000 existing vocational schools and establishment of 100 new vocational schools by the State governments. The government will provide assistance to 500 vocational schools being run under the private-public partnership mode and in-service training of existing and fresh teachers. The focus will be on development of 250 competency based modules for each individual vocational courses and assistance to 150 reputed non-governmental organisations to run short duration innovative vocational education programmes.

A pilot programme under the National Vocational Education Qualifications Framework (NVEQF) will be initiated in Haryana and West Bengal. The Sector Skill Councils, being set up by the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), have developed the National Occupational Standards (NOS) for some sectors and these will govern all activities to be taken up in vocational education.

The ambitious NVEQF programme, which aims to feed the industry with skilled hands, was launched in New Delhi on Saturday for polytechnic and engineering colleges. Unveiling the initiativeHuman Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said multiple sectors were involved in developing the syllabi, which enunciates the requirements of the industry for the skills that are necessary.

In all, there will be seven levels of certification ending at the university level. The unique part of the vocational framework is that it will be integrated with mainstream education and thus provide students multi-level entry and exit options, to enable them to seek employment after class XII. Any student under NVEQF can be sure that the institution is government authorised and nationally accredited and that the degree and other qualifications are genuine, said All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Chairman S.S. Mantha.

Earlier this year, the government set up a GoM consisting of state Education Ministers to suggest developing NVEQF. The report was presented to the Ministry last month. Mr. Sibal suggested that skill requirement in the agriculture sector should also be included under the purview of NVEQF and that courses in this field should be launched by 2013. The NVEQF will have provisions for subsidised fee structure for larger accessibility and programme delivery in local language.

Source: The Hindu, October 9, 2011

NSDC ties up with Future Group, NIIT for industry training

The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has tied up with Future Learning, an education arm of the Future Group, and NIIT to train 14 million persons in the next 10 years. The project cost of the public-private partnership with NIIT is Rs. 377 crore (Rs. 3.77 billion) where NSDC will take a 10 per cent stake in NIIT Yuva Jyoti Ltd.

“NYJL aims to set up over 1,500 state-of-the-art NIIT Yuva Jyoti Centres across 1,000 cities. The aim is to provide industry and job-specific training to around 7 million young Indians by 2022, thus helping create a pool of job-ready workforce for the service industry. Further, a ‘Skills Inventory’ of around 26 million youth will be created by 2022,” said Mr. Vijay Thadani, Chief Executive Officer, NIIT.

The 73:27 joint venture between NSDC and the Future Group will be known as Future Sharp Ltd., the project outlay for which is Rs. 58 crore (Rs. 580 million). “Electricians, beauticians, technicians and others will be trained through this partnership,” said Mr. Muralidhar Rao, Chief Executive Officer, Future Learning.

“We want to put hard skills right on top. A young skilled carpenter looking for a bride should be an impressive matrimonial advertisement,” said Mr. Dilip Chenoy, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, NSDC.

In the JV, NSDC will put in Rs. 43.4 crore (Rs. 434 million), of which Rs. 38 crore (Rs. 380 million) is the loan component, Rs. 5.4 crore (Rs. 54 million) equity component; Future will invest Rs. 14.6 crore (Rs. 146 million), according to a spokesperson.

Meanwhile, NSDC held its board meeting on Friday morning where two sector skill councils were cleared – BFSI (Banking, Financial, Services and Insurance) and healthcare. Till date, NSDC has cleared 34 projects and eight sector skill councils, added Mr. Chenoy. NSDC has also lined up a tie-up with TVS to be announced soon, according to sources.

Source: The Hindu Business Line, October 1, 2011

Vocational courses may get credit funding, ISO certification

The government is considering ISO certification and credit funding for vocational education courses to formulate standards for the sector and make India a skilled manpower hub during the 12th Five Year Plan period that starts April 2012. Both the Prime Minister​’s Skill Council and the Ministry of Labour are keen on seeing this in the 12th Plan period action plan. “We are working on getting ISO certification for all the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) to make the sector more standardized and become a global talent hub,” Sharada Prasad, Director General of Employment and Training at the Union labour ministry, said in New Delhi on Thursday. India has around 9,300 ITIs.

S. Ramadorai, adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on skill development, backed the move. “We are presented with a double-whammy opportunity—a skilled workforce is needed not just to fuel India’s growing industry demand but also to fill in the emerging demand in the West with its ageing population,” he said at the global skill summit organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). “When we undertake training programmes, we must benchmark it globally so that in a single step we meet both objectives.” Each sector should give its input for the creation of a national occupancy standard that defines outcomes at every level, he said.

The Prime Minister’s Skill Council has set a target of 500 million people being trained by 2022. Of this, the government co-promoted National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has a mandate to train 150 million and the labour ministry 100 million. The rest are to be trained by other ministries and departments in collaboration with private parties.

Since skill development penetration is shifting from the cities to rural areas, Ramadorai said that there was need for credit funding of the vocational education sector. “By giving access to funds, more people will be encouraged to skill themselves, hence we are working towards credit funding being enabled for vocational training,” said Ramadorai, who is also Vice-Chairman of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Ltd. He said that the education loan business has grown 40% in the last few years, which strengthens the case for credit funding of skill training.

“Quality standards are a must for sustainable growth,” said Sanjeev Duggal, Chief Executive of Centum Learning Ltd, education training unit of the Bharti group. “We have just started but monetary support to students will be key to promoting the sector. In the long run you need it.” Banks may be hesitant knowing the risk involved, said Abhaya Agarwal, Executive Director at consulting firm Ernst and Young (E&Y), which released a report on the skill sector on Thursday. “If there is some kind of guarantee from the government side, then it will help,” Agarwal said. “I believe microfinance has a good reach in rural India and can fill the gap.”

According to the E&Y report, about 67% of organizations in India are facing difficulty in filling up jobs against a world average of 34%. “In a scenario where 80% of the workforce in rural and urban India do not possess any identifiable marketable skills, and 75% of new job opportunities to be created will be skill based, it becomes essential for the country to evolve and develop a robust delivery mechanism on priority,” the E&Y report said. “The challenge here for the country is to ensure consistent quality of infrastructure and delivery, wider industry participation, social respect for skilled manpower and efficient coordination among delivery agencies for regulation and monitoring,” the report said.

Source: Mint, September 16, 2011

President urges educational institutes to produce more ’employable’ youth

Lack of employable skills among Indian youth for jobs is “worrisome” and professional institutions should help improve employability, President Pratibha Patil said in Hyderabad today. The President who delivered a key note address at Indian School of Business (ISB) said it is estimated that the economy faces a shortfall of 200,000 engineers, 400,000 graduates in other fields and 150,000 vocationally trained workers.

“Its a worrying sign that even though the third largest number of graduates in the world every year is produced in India, only 15 per cent of our boys and girls passing out of college have the skills required to become employable! This brings in concerns that students are getting degrees, but not getting employable hands-on skills,” Patil said.

Government has set-up the National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC) – a Public Private Partnership – to skill 500 million people by 2022 and institutions like the ISB should not only participate in it, but through interaction with the business world, help in developing the required skills, she said.

The objective of an educational institution is to prepare its students to meet the competitive environment of a knowledge based and technology driven world, which is driving change at a rate that necessitates rapid adaptability and the ability to invent and to re-invent, she explained.

“As a society transforms, its education system must respond to change. Its only then, that will it be relevant. Educational institutions must create the human resource capacities required for the times,” the President said in her speech. She suggested that the corporate world should design their business models in such way that it can go hand in hand with growth that is beneficial to society.

Patil remarked that the most successful corporate of the world are the ones which have a commitment not only towards the shareholders of their company, but indeed to society at large.

Source: The Economic Times (Online Edition), July 4, 2011

Vocational studies to get new curriculum in October, 2011

Faced with the problem of school dropouts and dearth of skilled labour, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) plans to finalise by October a new curriculum for vocational studies in the country. The National Vocational Education Qualifications Framework (NVEQF) will put in place a nationally recognised qualification system, covering higher secondary schools, vocational education institutes, polytechnics, colleges and institutes of higher education.

For this, the All-India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has identified eight skill areas for immediate attention and has involved the private sector for devising curriculum, testing, evaluation and certification. These eight areas are automobile, hospitality and tourism, security and energy, retail, media and entertainment, information technology, construction, and financial services, banking and insurance.

AICTE has already held meetings with the various stakeholders in the automobile, information technology, hospitality, media and entertainment and construction sectors and curriculum has already been prepared for the first three sectors. “Many students drop out of school or are not interested in regular formal education. Some fail their senior secondary exams while others have to work to support their families. In some cases, there are no formal colleges near their homes. The framework will benefit them,” said AICTE Chairman SS Mantha.

There are 9,583 schools offering 150 vocational courses of two-year duration in broad areas of primary, secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy. In addition, the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) imparts vocational education in 80 courses, taking the total enrolment in vocational education courses of all these schools to roughly 6,00,000. The framework will have a competency-based modular approach with provision for credit accumulation and transfer. Students would have the scope for vertical and horizontal mobility with multiple entry and exits.

With dropout rates nearing 40% in Classes IX-XII, Mantha added that vocational education would offer competency-based skills and help students find employment. Representatives from the industry chambers, National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) are also helping the ministry develop the framework.

“The ministry identified eight sectors for white collar jobs and a group of 12 state education ministers is examining the issues that may need sorting out at the state level to implement AICTE’s ambitious scheme. The group is expected to submit its report by July,” said Shalini Sharma, Head – Higher Education, Confederation of Indian Industry.

Source: The Financial Express, July 1, 2011

Bombay Stock Exchange to train millions in financial skills

There is hope for skilled manpower-starved banks, financial services’ firms and insurance companies. The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) says it will train 6.5 million people in the next 10 years to work in the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) sector, the largest employer in the Indian private sector.

BSE has been brought in by the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), a public-private partnership created by the Ministry of Finance in 2008, for the job. The pilot project, to include developing a complete work programme, is to begin next month.

NSDC is to extend a grant of Rs. 5 crore (Rs. 50 million) for the first three years to BSE for creating a pilot programme, said sources. BSE would set up at least 200 accredited training centres across the country. Each would train 3,250 people every year. The project will be carried out by BSE’s training institute, which till now had been conducting certified courses in capital market studies.

According to a recent estimate by the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), public sector banks alone require at least 400,000 new employees in the next two years. For example, Bank of Baroda is looking to recruit 5,000 employees during the current financial year. India’s largest lender, State Bank of India, which hired 20,000 people last year, is planning to hire 10,000 more this year. Union Bank of India plans to hire 4,000 people.

Says a member of the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS), “At present, public sector bank employees’ number almost a million but a large chunk of them will retire in the next two years.” Last year, IBPS facilitated the recruitment of 48,000 employees in PSBs.

Madhu Kannan, CEO and Managing Director of BSE, said: “It is one of the most important social causes. The BFSI sector severely lacks skilled workers and there is a vacancy at every level. We will invite other exchanges, depositories, banks and insurance companies to work together and also invest money, if need be.”

So far, NSDC has approved 36 projects, involving 30 companies and six sector skill councils (SSCs). It has committed funding of Rs. 1,016 crore (Rs. 10.16 billion) since February 2010 to train five million people. NSDC has identified 20 sectors to train 150 million people by 2022. The six sector skill councils are in the automotive segment, energy, retail, private security; media, entertainment and animation; and information technology and IT-enabled services. The SCCs are to create clear definition of qualifications required to perform a given job and to move into advanced positions.

Source: Business Standard, June 29, 2011

>Skill education may get bank loan facility

>Youngsters from poor families may soon be able to pay for skill development courses through loans issued at low interest rates, similar to the education loans given for professional and technical courses. The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), set up to boost the country’s skilled workforce, has proposed that skill development be made “an eligible category for financing from financial institutions/banks for rural and urban youth”.

“Skill training requires limited funds as most skill training is of limited duration… Making it part of priority sector lending, reducing interest rates and providing comfort to banks through a skill training fund are methods that could be considered,” said a note prepared by NSDC, a copy of which has been reviewed by Mint.

Skill development courses typically run for 3-12 months. The fees range from Rs.10,000 to Rs.100,000. Most skilled workers come from poor families in smaller towns, where raising such sums is a tall order, two government officials said, requesting anonymity. Skill training should be “made eligible for credit support as the country is targeting at inclusive development and creating a 500 million-strong skilled workforce by 2022”, one of them said.

The country faces an acute shortage of skilled workers, but the government has been unable to attract enough youngsters to skill development courses. NSDC has signed agreements with 24 organizations to promote skill development across India, but less than 25,000 youths received skill training over the past year, according to official data.

The government is now planning a Rs.100 crore (Rs. 1 billion) advertising campaign to bring more students to vocational schools, Mint reported on 23 March. Financing skill development remains a bottleneck, said Rituparna Chakravarty, Vice-President of TeamLease Services Pvt. Ltd, a staffing firm.

“We know as a fact that there are students who want to get into skill education, but cannot pay even Rs.10,000,” Chakravarty said. “Here, it will be a boost. From the industry perspective, it will improve efficiency and arrest high attrition of employees as the skilled manpower availability will increase.”

Source: Mint, May 2, 2011

>NSDC and Everonn tie-up to train 15 million candidates

>Education company Everonn Education Ltd. on Monday signed an agreement with the government co-promoted National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to train 15 million candidates in a deal that will, over the next 12 years, generate Rs. 14,000 crore (Rs. 140 billion) in revenue for the company. The entire project will be carried by Everonn Skill Development Ltd (ESDL), a subsidiary of Everonn Education that will set up 217 centres across India.

Both Everonn and NSDC made the announcement in Mumbai and said the total investment required for this would be Rs153.76 crore (Rs. 1.53 billion). While the NSDC will buy a 27% stake in ESDL for Rs. 14.15 crore (Rs. 141.5 million), it will also extend it a loan of Rs. 101.34 crore (Rs. 1.01 billion). ESDL will invest Rs. 38.27 crore (Rs. 382.7 million) initially and, according to Everonn Education’s Managing director P. Kishore, Rs. 300 crore (Rs. 3 billion) in the next two years.

“ESDL will be training 15 million people over the next 12 years. The average course fee is expected to be approximately Rs. 9,000 per person with the course ranging from 30 days to six months… This may translate into an overall revenue generating potential of approximately Rs. 14,250 crore (Rs. 142.5 billion) over the next 12 years,” Everonn said in a statement.

NSDC, which aims to train 150 million people by 2020, said the deal is the largest in terms of the number of people who will be trained. The initiative is part of a larger national mandate to train 500 million people to bridge the growing mismatch between education and employment. While NSDC itself has a mandate to train 150 million, several Central government ministries will take care of the task of training the others.

According to NSDC, ESDL will impart training in nine labour-intensive sectors — textile, construction, automobile, organized retail, tourism, hospitality, health care services, media and entertainment, basic engineering, and IT and IT-enabled services. The company will start its training programme in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and then go national. The training will happen the traditional way as well as through technology-enabled platforms (e-learning).

The beneficiaries will be primarily from tier-II and tier-III (or smaller) cities and that the training would come with placement assurances “which (will) come through industry tie-ups”. Experts say vocational education is the need of the hour and that most students graduating from colleges still need training. “Employability is a bigger issue than employment,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder of TeamLease Services Private Ltd., a staffing services company.

A 2010 report by audit and consulting firm KPMG said that inadequate skills is a major area of concern in India and added that training could change the contours of the country’s job market. India’s automobile sector alone faces a shortage of 300,000 skilled workers, the KPMG report said.

According to the government, only 10% of India’s workforce is made up of highly skilled workers; the corresponding proportion is at least 50% in developed countries. The Central government has increased the planned allocation for education to over Rs. 52,000 crore (Rs. 520 billion) for 2011-12, which is 24% more than the previous fiscal.

Meanwhile, human resource development minister Kapil Sibal, who is working on a national vocational education qualification framework, held a discussion on the same in Delhi on Monday and reiterated the need for training more people to sustain the economic growth of the country.

Source: Mint, April 19, 2011