Page 51 - EW August 2025

set an example to states has declined
from 0.44 percent of GDP in 2023-24
to 0.35 percent in 2025-26.
Mobilisation of resources for
investment in developing India’s
abundant, high-potential human re-
source is by no means an intractable
problem. For the past ten years co-
terminously with presentation of the
Union Budget, EducationWorld has
been presenting a detailed resources
mobilisation schema for the Centre to
raise Rs.6-8 lakh crore for investment
in public preschool to Ph D education.
Although we have invited pub-
lic critiques of this schema — which
has also been sent to several eminent
economists for evaluation and debate
— there’s no response. Meanwhile
despite repeated requests for an in- ITI students: width-depth conundrum
terview and constructive dialogue,
Union education minister Dharmen- hands, his sage advice about learning as AISECT (estb. 2016) and Centu-
dra Pradhan resolutely declines to in- with hands, i.e, vocational and skills rion (2010) started sprouting across
teract with your editors. education, was totally ignored. The the country. Moreover in 2008, the
True, Pradhan has granted inter- outcome of continuous neglect of vo- Congress-led UPA government at the
views to other publications. But it’s cational education and training (VET) Centre promoted the National Skill
respectfully submitted they don’t in Indian education is that only 5 per- Development Corporation (NSDC), a
have equivalent domain knowledge cent of India’s workforce has formal unique public-India Inc enterprise to
to conduct meaningful solutions-ori- skills training qualifications as against augment the VET efforts of the coun-
ented interviews as EducationWorld China’s 26 percent, USA’s 50 percent try’s 14,000 ITIs (Industrial Train-
(estb.1999). Implementation of the and South Korea’s 96 percent ing Institutes) that certify 1.4 million
constructive and nation-building The ground zero reality that indus- youth per year.
mandates of NEP 2020 requires ide- trially ambitious India needs not only However, the NSDC model under
ation and debates rather than issuing IIT engineers but armies of formally which the corporation funded pri-
ex cathedra statements of intent from skilled mid-level technicians — road vate sector training institutes to pro-
Shastri Bhavan, Delhi. layers, welders, machinists, plumbers, vide VET and skills education failed,
carpenters and construction workers because the corporation’s selection
VET/SKILLS — seems to have completely eluded of training firms was plagued with
the country’s central planners who
scams and scandals. As a result, hasty
EDUCATION drew up 13 elaborate five-year plans training and certification of poorly
— none of which hit their projected
schooled youth failed to produce read-
GDP growth targets. ily employable workers for industry
root cause of contemporary Awareness of the consequences of and especially for labour-intensive
India’s newly laid city roads this prolonged Brahmanical blindspot MSMEs (micro, small and medium
A and national highways quickly of India’s centrally planned and heav- enterprises) that employ 62 percent
pock-marking with potholes; bridges ily regulated primary to Ph D educa- of the country’s workforce, and con-
collapsing; numerous railway acci- tion system began to dawn on leftist tribute 30 percent of GDP.
dents and civic disasters, is continu- central planning proponents and the In 2014, after establishment of the
ous neglect of vocational education Planning Commission after India’s Union ministry of skill development
in the country’s schools, colleges and post-independence socialist, isola- & entrepreneurship by the newly
universities. Although in the years tionist economy was liberated and elected BJP government at the Centre
leading up to India’s independence deregulated in 1991, and India Inc and launch of the Skill India Mission
from British rule in 1947, Mahatma started to experience cold winds of in 2015, NSDC was brought under
Gandhi recommended that children competition. New private universities the new ministry’s purview and re-
should learn with head, hearts and focused on skills development such vamped. Since then, it has signed up

AUGUST 2025 EDUCATIONWORLD 51