SUGGESTIONS: MID-COURSE CORRECTION REQUIRED FOR THE TVET FRAMEWORK IN INDIA

With the new government in place and a vigorous emphasis on skills development, evident through the creation of the new ‘Skills Development and Entrepreneurship’ ministry and the prime minister’s own words in almost every public outing, we are witnessing a phase where the TVET structure and framework is under a very critical eye and being reviewed. The TVET structure has been in focus over the past few years, given the realization of our youthful population, unemployment and related social challenges and poor educational attainment in the country, dissatisfaction of employers with the talent pool available, etc. 

International attention has been rife as well with business and development agendas providing impetus to this area. New structures have been created with industry and government both providing direction and funds to this. A great deal of hectic activity has taken place and we now have the some of the following in focus

1. A New Skills Development Ministry

2. A National Skills Qualification framework (NSQF)

3. National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC) a public-private partnership frame primarily for funding capacity building of large scale, high quality for-profit training providers, training schemes and Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) 

4. National Skills Development Agency (NSDA) looking at coordinating and harmonsing work across ministries, government, NSDC and the private sector; directing and managing some other interventions including operationalizing and development of the NSQF, International Interventions and projects, being the nodal agency for SSDMs, etc. 

5. State Skills Development Missions (SSDMs)

6. Sector Skills Councils developing occupational standards for industry requirements

7. Standards for developing assessors and trainers

8. Assessing body approval guidelines and procedures

9. Vocational Training Providers (VTP) approval guidelines and procedures

10. Trans-national standards and international equivalences

11. STAR scheme to increase throughput and other schemes to support the same based on geography and special interest segments. Precursor of some of these were the Modular Employment Scheme (MeS), etc.

12. Labor Management Information Systems (LMIS) proposed but still not functional

13. Other supportive elements like the NSQC, QRC, etc. 

Key concerns

1. Current structure has low level of checks and balances on constituents. The system therefore has been exploited and not yielded the results that should have emerged from these.

2.  There is overlapping of responsibilities or lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities in certain areas and therefore clashes of interest and turf battles undermining the efforts and diverting focus and priority. 

3. There isn’t a structure for planned capacity building of these institutions themselves.

4.  Constituents are provided with roles and responsibilities that have built-in conflicts of interest.

5. New areas, agendas and concerns have emerged since the structure was created and there is no clear process or agency nominated to address these, therefore creating confusion.

6. Industry participation is patchy and industry funding is inconsistent.

7. Lack of integration in existing structures and working. The certificate and qualifications do not link to existing frameworks of education and recognition thereof is missing.

8. Unrealistic expectations of impact, returns and timelines along with short term thinking is undermining quality and creation of a robust TVET framework.

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