Page 52 - EW August 2025

Cover Story

58,914 reputed private training part- learning outcomes —
ner firms and HEIs (including Team- as testified year after
Lease, Centurion, AISECT, etc). Its 38 year by the Annual
Sector Skill Councils set standards in Status of Education
consultation with industry and draw Report — tend to be
up curriculums for vocations. Accord- very poor (53 percent
ing to NSDC, these partnerships have of class VII children
trained 34 million youth for 11,912 job can’t read class III
roles. texts in their own ver-
Evidently NSDC’s claim of having nacular languages or
provided VET to 34 million youth is manage simple divi-
somewhat over-blown. In her budget sion sums). Therefore,
2024-25 presentation, Union finance short-duration (three-
minister Nirmala Sitharaman said six month) skilling
that under the India Skill Mission’s programmes which
various initiatives including the Prad- usually don’t include
han Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana Khanna (left): coordination lacuna industry internships,
(PMKVY), Jan Shikshan Sansthan, don’t enthuse indus-
National Apprenticeship Promotion workforce estimated at 733 million is trial firms and employers.
Scheme, and Craftsmen Training formally skilled as against a mere 5 According to a report in the Indian
Scheme through ITIs, as of February percent of India’s 600 million. Little Express (April 4) which quotes skills
2024, the mission had trained 14 mil- wonder that with its huge number of minister Jayant Chaudhury, between
lion youth, and upskilled and reskilled skilled workers, China recorded com- PMKVY 1.0 through PMKVY 3.0
5.4 million. pounded annual GDP growth rate of (2015-16 to 2021-22), of the 5.7 mil-
Against the backdrop of India’s 10 percent for 30 years (1978-2008) lion youth certified under short-term
youth, population aggregating to consecutively — unprecedented in training programmes, only 2.4 mil-
500 million and 10 million graduates world history — to increase its GDP to lion (43 percent) have secured em-
streaming out of the country’s 52,081 $19 trillion (cf. India’s 4 trillion) and ployment. Industry associations cite
colleges and 1,338 universities every transform into the factory and manu- mismatch between course content
year, the India Skills Mission’s record facturing hub of the world. and industry requirement as the ma-
of skilling and upskilling 20 million lthough since 2009 and especially jor reason. Since then, under PMKVY
youth is nothing to write home about. Asince the BJP/NDA coalition was 4.0 placement tracking has been dis-
India’s 14,000 small Industrial Train- swept to power in 2014, overdue at- continued.
ing Institutes (ITIs) certify 1.4 million tention has been accorded to VET and Ajay Khanna, Managing Director
youth, and 4,600 VET institutes pro- an independent ministry of skills de- and Chief Executive of Herbalife India
viding short-term PMKVY courses velopment and entrepreneurship es- Pvt. Ltd, a subsidiary of the US-based
certify an estimated 10 million youth. tablished at the Centre, perhaps for eponymous wellness products mega-
These figures pale in comparison with historical caste and social reasons, corp (annual revenue: $4,780 million)
neighbouring China whose massive skills training has not yet received the and Chairperson of Skills Develop-
10,300 secondary school VET insti- social acceptability that it has in other ment at Delhi-based PHDCCI (for-
tutes and 1,500 VET colleges certify Asian and developed OECD countries. merly Punjab, Haryana, Delhi Cham-
10 million intensively trained youth Moreover, the newly introduced skill- ber of Commerce & Industry) which
per annum. ing programmes under India Skills has a membership of 130,000 com-
And it’s pertinent to note that since Mission tend to be of short-duration, panies and MSME firms, believes that
1978, when China took the capitalist hastily dispensed by edtech firms. As NEP 2020 provides a useful roadmap.
road and introduced its industrialisa- a result, the large majority of skills It has charted new direction for Indian
tion and “open-door” economic re- development programmes dispensed education, especially in the realms of
forms, VET has been a strategic pillar under the PMKVY, Deen Dayal Upad- early childhood and skills education.
of its education system and accorded hyay Yojana and other initiatives tend “By according high importance to
equal importance with academic edu- to have width but lack depth. foundational learning and numeracy,
cation. On the other hand, India gave This is especially problematic be- NEP 2020 has generated national
VET high importance only in 2009 cause the overwhelming majority of awareness that quality primary-
when NSDC was promoted, and again youth who opt for VET typically after secondary education with vocational
in 2015 under the India Skills Mis- classes X and XII have mostly studied skills taught right from the start,
sion. As a result, 24 percent of China’s in government or rural schools where builds a strong foundation for techni-

52 EDUCATIONWORLD AUGUST 2025