Recommendations on Skills Development and Education in India

As the new government steps in and everyone has a wish list I have my ten points of recommendations on skills development and education in India. (This is extracted from an article that can be found at www.progilence.com).

1. Invest in creating information systems that produce real and authentic data. At the moment all sorts of figures are floating around, particularly guilty are large consulting bodies who produce these with little concern that this would ever have to stand scrutiny. Even though a large number of industry voices dispute these, these are so quickly copied by others that soon the same numbers are being quoted from different sources, which seems to be an erroneous self-validating mechanism. A Labour Market Information System is said to be in the works, but there is little to inspire confidence in it at this stage. Not only should it have been forthcoming much earlier, but even now there is little clarity on how this is being developed.
2. Create conducive conditions for small entrepreneurs to set-up training and education capacities – this will help as large companies see this business only in terms of numbers and another vertical that allows them to grow. For small entrepreneurs this is usually a matter of passion and survival, both generate immense commitment to the cause. Also for small entrepreneurs these are usually in cohabited locations, whereas for large companies there are relatively more overheads involved in setting up remote capacities.
3. Take a realistic estimate of how much time and effort it takes to train people to develop meaningful competencies across various contexts and develop norms and guidelines for schemes which align to that. As of now unrealistic expectations seem to be the norm and everyone is using it as an excuse to deliver poor quality and escape accountability; it also thwarts those who want to put in a genuine effort.
4. Tighten quality norms and create independent quality committees which assess work done by various service providers. It is important to have sufficient diversity in the committees to ensure that the scope for corruption and collusion is minimized. Unquestioned faith on the private sector is as dangerous as unquestioned faith in government monitoring.
5. Hold employers accountable for providing workers with reasonable work environments and terms and conditions. This includes health, hygiene and safety, remuneration and leave, in-service professional and overall development of workers, conditions that allow workers access to career development avenues to upgrade their professional qualifications, above other things. Create campaigns and drive the agenda of continuing professional development across society.
6. Support job creation, by encouraging entrepreneurship especially small and micro-entrepreneurs, help spread information about support services that they can avail. Make it easy for them to get support including but not just limited to credit access. Provide a scheme to encourage professionals with high quality work experience to access credit and support services based on the quality of their professional experiences and business plans rather than asset collateral. Expect and have a loss guarantee scheme in place to cover failure. Remember not all failure is bad.
7. Create a flow of talent in the education system. For doing that invest in development of school and other educational leaders and teachers which are supported by adequate per diems, while overall funds seem huge, high quality providers often find it difficult to deliver quality in low per diems. Provide incentives to people from other professions to move into teaching; at the same time develop career paths and related development opportunities for school leaders, teachers and other education workers to transition to other careers. Recognize that it is as important to bring in talent as much as it is important to let people go out of the system.
8. Focus on education that develops practical skills as much as there is focus on knowledge acquisition. For this the best thing would be for educational institutes at all levels to engage with the outside world and work in real contexts, rather than in an isolated and cocooned environment. Whether in the form of projects, community work, part-time jobs, commercial assignments, research, etc. get educational institutes to engage with the real world, real society and the market. This should also encourage cross contextual work where students get to experience other cultures and environments.
9. Focus on multi-disciplinary learning and focus on improving co-scholastic areas including music and arts, physical education and other areas. This not only develops emotional and social competencies, but also has vocational value and inherent personal development benefits.
10. Bring a focus back on quality, quality drives greater value creation, people pay more for quality and quality therefore creates a virtuous cycle. Create awareness and enablement for quality and bring together people on the table from different contexts and cultures to understand possibilities and get a more balanced view of quality. Let these not be lost in power struggles and bureaucratic, hierarchical decision making. Increase spending on quality education for all and at all levels. 

The Future of Schooling - A 'Coalition of Entities'

(This is an extract from the full article which is available at www.progilence.com)

The world and education has changed a lot over the past few decades, in terms of content, demands, perspectives, challenges and possibilities. Yet in large measure the prevailing idea of school education and school as an encompassing solitary entity. It is a concept which has come upon a time where it beckons change.

CHANGE DRIVERS
We are getting more and more unconvinced about the ill-conceived one-size fits all model of education. Recognising the differences and need of children to develop and learn at different paces, with different learning styles and being of different inclinations and abilities, we are now confronting a new level of recognition and acceptance of diversity. This makes us question the need for unquestionable conformance to a standard set of rules and externally imposed expectations, set by and through a structure, the suitability and credibility of which itself is under attack.

We also recognise the demands this diversity puts upon teachers, who perhaps are destined to fail in this kind of a delivery model, where they are singularly responsible to address the repertoire of needs and demands of not only learners, but of administrative structures, parents and an increasingly meddlesome society.

Also given that schools are always criticised for lack of innovation and not keeping up with emergent teaching tools, techniques, methodologies and ideologies, it is not difficult to understand the challenge of upgrading skills and perspectives of teachers en masse, where the expectation is akin to installation of a new software patch or upgrading the version itself, that immediately transforms the incumbents into more capable, effective and efficient bots.

In addition the challenge of engagement with the real world to derive citizenship values, industry grade vocational skills, and practical application of knowledge, skills and attitudes to participate gainfully and meaningfully in society, plus upkeep and currency of infrastructure, are all demands that are increasingly becoming difficult to maintain to such a standard that provides a decent chance of success.

In recent times we also have in many countries heard of the school voucher system, to allow learners choice to avail education from a range of schools including those that were seemingly elite and until now inaccessible. The idea is that every student deserves a decent education irrespective of their socio-economic status which should not be a limiting factor for access to quality and enabling achievement.

I think that this choice while is good and necessary, it can and must be extended further, to circumvent the limitations of capacity and convenience.

Given the various facets of education, related developments, attempted and required reform, my view is that the current school model has to give in. It has to give in to a model that allows for relatively unshackled evolution of education tools, techniques and methodologies and participation of learners in it as per their choice.

THE FUTURE OF SCHOOLING – A COALITION OF ENTITIES

The current education system and the school model has to upgrade and metamorphose into the school system of the future, where the school will no longer be a single entity but a ‘Coalition of Entities’. Where formal structured learning would no longer remain confined to this extant entity, but include multiple organisations and avenues of learning that the student could avail at choice.

The need and benefits of it are beyond doubt. Picture this, the learning ecosystem would include of various organisations and entities which would offer learners opportunities to learn and develop in various aspects of their curriculum. These entities could be NGOs, Corporate and Industrial members, various types of educational institutions, community and volunteering organisations, other civil society and quasi-government bodies, etc.

The schools as we know today will be largely administrative and guiding bodies which would enrol, coordinate and record progress of learners. Apart from offering perhaps counselling services, though even some of these services could be carried out by other competent and approved bodies.

Learners will have multiple options for learning in specific and trans-disciplinary learning; ie. while some organisations may offer learning in specific specialised domains such as language, physical education and sports, maths, biology, public speaking, food science and nutrition, etc. others may choose to offer multi-disciplinary learning embedded in an encompassing context. For example an NGO involved in raising awareness about pollution may integrate environmental science, with arts (using drama and street plays to deliver the message), language, geography and even maths. What they will require is to be able to map learning outcomes to the inputs, activities and the curriculum. In another instance this could be a company offering back-end knowledge/transaction processing services along with call centers, they may offer language classes, along with customer service, maths, etc. A company involved in manufacturing electronics could offer courses in physics and mathematics. A hospital could offer classes in biology and other disciplines. A scientific research institute could offer classes in various sciences.

Schools could also encourage students to engage with more than one option to have a more rounded approach for achieving learning outcomes.

Learners would have the opportunity to sample various offering from different institutions, before signing up for those classes. They may also have the option of shifting from one to the next incase they feel that is required.

The various institutions offering courses may for example include in one case a voluntary organisation of math enthusiasts who teach maths through various methods including recreational maths, games and activity based math sessions, etc. Another could be an organisation which uses various advanced mathematics techniques and as a corporate social responsibility agenda or as an employee development programme offers maths classes to nearby schools where employees take turn to not only cover the basic curriculum but use contextually relevant examples to make the experience practical and engaging students in application of maths. An organisation may even be able to give them some basic work that produces a valuable output for the organisation (a’ la apprenticeships). Another organisation could be an online provider which delivers classes through interactive web tools and videos (a’ la MOOCs) or yet another which is an institution of higher education which provides classes for school students as part of training of their own students or as part of a teacher continuing professional development programme.

Those who think this is far-fetched let me draw your attention to a few facts that should convince or make you a bit more receptive. A number of schools already use this model largely for the following areas 1) Physical Education and Sports 2) Community engagement projects 3) in some forms education excursions and study tours. For further educational institutions and TVET (Technical Vocational Education and Training) options this is again becoming a growing reality, where practical training and experience is gained at industry premises through partnerships that the school establishes with industry members.

Schools in many countries also use the hub and spoke model to share infrastructure and specialist resources as well. Students use resources like that of the Khan academy, many other online providers, post-school tuition and other summer training and part-time employment programmes to achieve academic learning and other developmental outcomes.

So in many ways this is already happening. But we need a more structured system to offer an integral and reliable alternative to the current education system.

BENEFITS

Some of the benefits of this system will be

1. These will and should include organisations in the forefront of pedagogical developments and domain expertise. They would specialise in one or more approaches suitable to learners with different needs and preferences. 
2. Students get a choice and the convenience of sampling the approaches which may be most suited to them and with the facility to change if they find it not delivering the desired result.
3. Students can enroll for more than one course for the same discipline in case they feel they need more support and effort in a particular discipline.
4. Students not only have an opportunity for learning but apply their learning in real time and real world scenarios.
5. Learners get a real view of various contexts in their environment
6. The limitations of a single teacher addressing multiple needs and demands is no longer applicable.
7. Availability of teachers can be circumvented
8. There is substantial increase in capacity as potentially every organisation can take on some part of education delivery
9. Curriculum will be current and there will be continually evolving standards in line with real world developments
10. Organisations will be able to view this as an avenue for not only generating more revenue, but as a way to disseminate information about their work, raising their profile by increasing goodwill and providing development avenues for their staff. 
11. Organisations will also benefit by being able to project themselves as employers of choice not only to local stakeholders but to the students as they finish with their schooling. 
12. The overall benefits of this would be increased employment potential, as education would have components delivered in real work environments with students picking up contextual and work ready skills, perspectives and knowledge.

Education and Skills Development - Big not always better

In the education and skills development space it is important to recognise the true nature of the requirements at hand and the accompanying challenges, to be able to make real progress on these critical agenda points. Largely reform on these agendas has relied on efforts directed towards, curriculum changes, teacher training, access and choice, student retention, assessments, greater accountability of teachers and school leaders and results based funding.

A significant amount of effort has gone into motivating and training teachers and leadership development at the school level including introduction of technology based teaching methodology to support teachers and learning.

I think there is a need to recognise that behaviour change, which involves capability development, perspective building and conducive support systems, requires ongoing development, action, monitoring, review and responsiveness. While this is often expounded and somewhat true that technology enables us to do most of these things remotely, unfortunately we are yet to find examples of large scale responsive systems which can quite grasp the complexity of behavioural change at the point of performance.

It is important to remember that the output stakeholders desire often from education and skills development systems are a somewhat benchmarked and standardised cohort of individuals who can perform to a certain minimum standard.

Large organisations have been aggressively lobbying for more work in the space, based on claims of being able to produce this standardised output based on their ability to scale their operations and deploy standardised measures across vast areas. In addition their research capabilities, expertise and track record in other markets, ability to afford expensive technology and hire talent are put forth as claims for credibility.

The truth of the matter is that in the space of education and skills development the critical factor is that while the output is desirably standardised, to manage and deliver on that expectation requires sufficiently varied input and a highly responsive dynamic system attuned to local, individual and contextual variations. Unfortunately, large organisations and their internal dynamics designed to make them perform efficiently make them more suited towards creating common culture and relatively homogenised ways of working and communicating. So when they deploy, even though they are desirous of building a flexible and responsive system end up creating a relatively straight-jacketed and inflexible system. This has been the legacy of the manufacturing industry which relied on standardised products being delivered through a network of distributors who had to deal with a small number of variables but largely rely on standardised schemes and communication to get their products on shelves.

In addition what seemingly are the benefits of economies of scale, as often claimed by large companies as an advantage over smaller ones, are often not realised. This is because the overheads for large companies without last mile connectivity tend to be much higher, given the complexities of education and skills development input and the controls for quality that are required. Technology solutions even within large corporate at the moment are struggling to balance the need for flexibility with standardisation; so I cannot but imagine that even with rapidly evolving technology, those solutions with the requisite level of responsiveness that hold promise to resolve some of the complex issues in education are some time away from being developed and deployed across large education and training systems.

In this scenario I can only think that the real solution for the challenges within this all important space lies in creating and leveraging locally entrenched small and micro-scale organisations that engage with schools and other providers to support improvement in quality across the education and skills development value chain. A locally entrenched entity not only comes with critical local knowledge and relationships, they also tend to have much lower overheads and potentially can have longer engagement with the stakeholders to ensure the system receives timely input and support on an ongoing basis. They have higher stakes in longer term success and viability of the system as failure often can threaten critical relationships and means of sustenance. It is also widely accepted that smaller organisations are much more responsive and conducive for innovation.

It would be prudent if Public systems recognise this and create a framework for engagement of local agencies in supporting schools and training providers and funds those rather than pinning their hopes on large providers centrally. Secondly, there is a need to create a network of small providers and support them in upgrading their own knowledge, perspective and skills. Thirdly, a framework of shared services should be created that allows these organisations to get support on non-core areas such as administrative, compliance and staff functions. Fourthly, a transparent mechanism for meaningfully funding these agencies that ties-in realistic accountability needs to be put in place.

These actions should encourage professionals in this space, who want to start social enterprises and contribute to society, thereby generating jobs at the local level. At the same time this will help the country develop expertise and create capacity in the area where there is a dearth of professionals and over-reliance on western and large urban based companies. Hopefully this will generate the necessary momentum to deliver much needed, progressive, much improved services and outcomes at the last mile. 

School systems are delivering suboptimal results, but why things are likely to get worse

The school system is a legacy institution which has not evolved as rapidly as it needed to. The foundation of the school system was set on standardisation, where students were expected to learn standardised content and assessed through standards based and standardised testing mechanisms. In earlier days relatively low numbers of students were going to school and it was the school systems job to get kids in order and align parenting to achieve school based academic and developmental outcomes. Those students who were underachievers were considered abnormal; something was considered to be wrong with them. They were subjected to disciplinary measures, threats, remedial interventions at schools, parental interventions and clinical interventions, expected to catch-up or be consigned to a special school or such if not abandoned as a lost case. But what has happened over the years is that there has been a growing realisation among various people including students, parents, educationists, development specialists and people at large that it is okay to be different and to learn differently. It is also ok to learn different things too. Also that, students as much as teachers, schools and school systems are different and involve non-standardised transactions, owed to who they are and factors that are sometimes in the control of school authorities but mostly not.

There is a liberation from the need to conform and people are now no longer willing to accept their being branded as inadequate and abnormal, knowing that just because they learn differently, or are interested in different things, or value different things, they still can lead healthy, normal and successful lives and that they deserve respect, rights and privileges as much as anyone else. Muted diversity is now finding self-acceptance, confidence and expression, as it should. This factor is driving fundamental changes across society, its institutions, ideologies and practices.

This in turn has put the pressure back on teachers and education systems to engage and offer education and developmental opportunities to children who are diverse, without necessarily forcing them to conform. Now given teacher – student ratios, standard curriculum, legacy effect of teaching practice and teacher education, limited funding and a host of other factors this situation is going to demand more skills, perspective and time of teachers to keep these kids engaged, offer customised educational and developmental content, facilitation and instruction and use non-standardised assessment methods while attempting to meet an academic performance standard increasingly being demanded by societal stakeholders (government, funding agencies, parents, educationists, etc.), all within a timeframe. Given the added pressure from funding systems and evaluation criteria for performance of school and teachers the overall situation has little hope of a turnaround. Of course at another level to add to the complexity, the same goes for teacher educators and administrators responsible for teacher education and development.

What is happening concomitantly is that the employment world is changing; while large numbers of employers are complaining of lack of adequate skill sets among job candidates (graduates or school leavers), employers are also now creating competitive advantage based on innovation, usually derived by engaging outliers. These outliers inevitably are non-conformists, as these non-conformists become successful there is a greater influence on people to pull away in the direction of their dreams and passions, with focus on becoming a master in one field rather than acquire the full set of complementary academically derived skill-sets and knowledge.  Given that there are newer non-traditional learning opportunities in the environment now accessible to students including those who haven’t completed schooling,  which are self access learning materials and MOOCs, apart from certificate programmes from a host of private and other providers, learning is no longer confined and constrained to schools. Also the hierarchy of learning as in the school curriculum structure will no longer hold good as students will engage in non-sequential, trans-disciplinary, self-paced learning. All this will contribute to unschooling as a growing trend. The products of these learning systems are increasingly going to meet employer needs and therefore people are going to rely less on the schooling system for employment, which is what people see the primary benefit of the school system as. 

The school system will still remain a place where most parents who don’t have time to tend to their children will send them to and those desirous of continuing their higher education (which has its own dynamics and challenges) will continue to patronise apart from many others. The pressure on teachers and schools systems to respond with changes will only keep growing though. The shackles of standardisation and educationists' fetish for it will have to give way. Given the shortage of teachers in most countries and given the rapidity with which influences in the social sphere spreads, there will always be a lag in institutionalising ideologies, perspectives, practices and processes that need to be in place to cope with the changes outside of school and its influence on student behaviour, parental and other stakeholders’ expectations. This will make the situation increasingly untenable for school systems, being constantly challenged until redefined and evolved into a new construct. Till then expect a lot more dissatisfaction and pressure on the school system. 

TVET: What's in a name? Thoughts on Vocational Education.

Given the challenges TVET (Technical, Vocational Education and Training) is facing across countries there has been a very high degree of focus around it in both developing and developed contexts. There is a direct correlation being drawn to the importance of TVET and employability. The jobs and employment agenda has been on the forefront even more so since the financial crisis broke out more than six years ago, and that it impacts not only growth within the economy but it is also where agendas of the individual, the private sector and the public sector coincides at least in basic principle.

While we will look at issues that surround this in greater detail over a period of time and highlight different perspectives and practices, we will also aim to uncover insight that may have become obscure within the myriad views and accompanying cacophonies that crowd this space.

At the outset what I would like to focus on is the very terminology that is often questioned for its meaning and effect, Vocational Education. It is often the contention of experts that vocational education is not appealing and often has a poor image and low social perception, which results in poor uptake and lack of prioritisation amongst stakeholders.  It was a key point I remember from the times we tried to highlight this to white collar policy makers, educationists and industrialists; we asked them that whom would they rather see their daughter marry, a corporate sales executive or a plumber? Followed by 'would they be happy seeing their daughter marry a plumber'? No points for guessing what their answer was, even though in some countries the plumber might make more money than the sales executive and  a lot of other professions. Also to bear in mind that if the definition of vocational education is career related trade skills, incumbents of both occupations have perhaps partaken therein.  So maybe we need to consider whether it is the profession itself or the strata of society that traditionally worked such jobs that lend itself to low social perception. Perhaps the deeper issue revolves around dignity of labour.

A lot of people suggest that we should perhaps use a different term instead of TVET to give it more respectability and get rid of legacy effects of the terms.  I ofcourse think this has to be more strategic than merely playing around with terminology. I think the very chasm between general education and vocational education will need to be bridged for people to realise that both are integral to each other and our objective is holistic education. The failings of general education to be relevant, effective and practical have caused the emergence of this distinction. While some may see TVET as specialised focus on trade related skills, my contention is that language, mathematics, ICT, economics, perspective, etc. are all integral to careers, vocational education and skills attainment.

In some places TVET is under the garb of Further education, it is ingenious how we use that to differentiate it from higher education!  So what is the aim of higher education? Even if it is to lead into teaching and research isn't that vocational (for occupational purposes), for if it is not then it is not practical and therefore not usable.

Just because we choose to draw a distinction and it serves experts in these areas to keep it so, doesn't mean it needs to be seen as a separate part while deploying it through the educational system. If the only part we plan to call TVET or its substitutes are trade specific skills the that should be seen as specialisations and should be again broken down into grade relevant skills with core mandatory requirements and electives. Higher level skills should be integrated with higher education frameworks. These are generally achieved through qualification frameworks and their linkages to existing general education and higher education systems. There is just no reason for these to be separate at all. I think in time the education system has to integrate and rise above the vested interests of experts who want these to be seen differently.
We just have started to see vocational education as an alternative because our general education system is failing, for vocational education to succeed we have to make the existing general education system effective as well. This is because the very foundational skills required for successful careers to be built upon are intended outcomes of the general education stream. We need to constantly review our education systems and be willing to do that in its entire construct too rather than merely piecemeal.
At the moment India is going down the path of attempting to define vocational education frameworks and not one but two, lead by two different government ministries. The Prime Minister has now intervened to bring these two warring ministries together on some sort of a consensus, but this is exactly the way vested interests driven agendas play out and what we need to be wary of. Turf issues are not going to help resolve this educational dilemma. In a country where the educational system is falling severely short of credibility and effectiveness, there is no reason to expect greater success in the creation of a parallel system that will perhaps take more effort, expertise and control than even fixing the current system of education.  So on what do the apologists of this supposedly new (re-framed) class of education predicate the success of this system; I’d be very interested in knowing. 

Education - A CAS (complex adaptive system) View

As a country and perhaps even the wider society we continue to grapple with issues around education and its role in preparing the citizenry for optimal participation in society, maintaining and progressing its existence, values and institutions.

Some of these value objectives revolve around longevity, good health and dignity of humans as individuals and as members of a larger collective. Human behaviour seemed to gain importance as a key variable in the achievement of the above stated objectives, as people realised that other peoples actions initially as individuals and later as aggregated agents could affect others' existence, state of wellbeing, physical and psychological states.

In our endeavour to deconstruct what model behaviour and rules of existence protected the interests of the majority we began to identify, study and analyse the impact of variables in the environment and of individual –aggregated-environmental interactions. This subsequently got recognised as a complex adaptive system.

While this produced information around many subroutines that comprised actions influencing behaviour to produce outcomes conducive to the final objectives of longevity, happiness and sustainability of mankind, the perpetual novelty of the changes effected by these actions constantly evolve these subroutines. Thus introducing uncertainty into the model for us to never be sure about what to expect.

In order to ensure that our future generations and others align to our understanding of near optimal subroutines we aim to design education systems to support our objectives. Ofcourse as individuals sit in different seats and experience our world and interaction therein differently, we mostly hold divergent views of the world and on what ideal education and optimal delivery methodologies for it are.

There is logically no basis for us to agree on whose view is right or ideal as the boundary conditions for those views and the variables within keep changing. Generally when the majority agree and find favour within power structures to shape and move education into a certain direction it moves, but never quite in a uniform way predictable across time or for outcomes. Therefore a number of subroutines are always in play in varying degrees of thrust and in different directions because of which a large scale educational system set on standardization is self-defeating.

The very nature of complex adaptive system and the attempt to define ideal education systems, objectives and practices therein has had us uncover an ever-increasing array of dynamic variables and their related dynamic interactions, causing us to get an ever increasing complex view of it and therefore of education management. We hope to be able to identify subroutines that hold good for a period of time when steady states or optima prevail or can be created therefore. This is to hopefully give ourselves a better chance to adjust to subsequent changes by understanding the cause-effect of changes in relevant variables and thus manage to keep the changes fairly aligned towards achievement of objectives for as long as is possible. All this while being aware that sand is slipping by through the hands all the time as our very efforts to preserve the order are agents that are the cause of prevailing and ensuing chaos.