CII releases Study on Mapping of Human Resources and Skills in

Confederation of Indian Industry today released a study on the Mapping of Human Resources and Skills in Andhra Pradesh to showcase the potential of the state to emerge as the leader in Skills. The study envisages that by 2015, Andhra Pradesh will have 7.5-8 million new (incremental) jobs to offer. The employment opportunities are likely to emanate mainly from the IT & ITES, textiles, engineering, construction, pharma and biotech, tourism, health care and financial services sectors. The break-up for such job opportunities in terms of skill level is about 4.5 million skilled and highly skilled professionals and 3 to 3.5 million unskilled human resources.

Considering “employability” of these resources, it is required to create educational infrastructure/support systems (mechanisms such as training programmes, vocational courses) capable of training 3.2 million students till 2015.The study further points out that new employment opportunities in the state would not only call for enhanced functional and to an extent sector-specific competencies across levels, but also several “soft” skills to address deficiencies viz Self Esteem, ability to relate with co-workers, time management skills and communication skills such as time management skills, communication skills and ability to relate with co-workers and work as a team.

The study reveals that out of the total engineering graduates and diploma holders passing out from AP every year, over 40% remain unemployed even after two years of pass-out. The primary reasons cited for the “unemployability” of students are disconnect between academic curricula and industry requirements resulting in deficiencies in specific functional skills besides lack of practical training, market orientation., “soft” skills of students and shortfall in appropriately trained faculty to impart soft skills and this is a concern assuming increasing proportions.

The study have set out recommendations to the Government of Andhra Pradesh and suggested the need to conceptualize and roll out a Sustenance Training and Employability Program (STEP) targeted at the large pool of minimally educated but skillable workforce. This has to be a large-scale skill-development initiative, covering around 0.3 million people annually and seeking to impart basic training to unskilled labour (primarily agricultural workforce) so that they can take up jobs in the organized sector. This initiative would cover areas such as workplace culture, safety habits & specific skill training and Advanced training program aimed at people already working in the industry with a view to upgrade their skill.

In order to address skill gaps of trained human resources, the CII Study suggested that the Government of Andhra Pradesh needs to formulate and implement a Employability based skill development initiative that would seek to develop the competencies of the State’s skilled human resources to meet industry requirements. This would focus on establishing industry based skill development centres to facilitate focused skill development, strengthening employment market information to provide labour market information to stakeholders. The objective is to bridge the information gap between the educational institutions and the employers in order to facilitate quick employment for Students.

Other initiatives are aimed at improving the course curriculum to make it more relevant to industry needs and at improving ITIs by introducing more industry / job oriented courses. Improving the effectiveness of IMCs in ITIs will help the state to develop a skill talent pool.

The study recommends the Government to establish a Skill Development Fund (SDF) to ensure adequate resource availability for the promotion of Skill Development Initiatives in the state. The annual funding requirements to support the initiatives outlined above would be of the order of Rs. 650 crore.

CII suggests that the State Government nominate a nodal agency to manage the disbursement of funds that would support the various training initiatives envisaged. The key roles of the nodal agency would include establishing guidelines for funding skill development initiatives, monitoring & tracking fund utilisation and assessing the effectiveness of the programmes.

In this study CII concludes that several measures as suggested needs to be implemented by the various stakeholders—State Government, educational institutions and industry—so that human resources requirements of the State of Andhra Pradesh are met. Once implemented CII believes these measures would contribute significantly to ensure that Andhra Pradesh realise its economic and industrial growth potential. ICRA Management Consulting Agency (IMACS ) was the Knowledge partner for CII in conducting the study.

Speech written for Mr. Ashok Soota, Chairman and Managing Director, Mindtree Consulting Ltd for a CII Concalve

Dr. J Geeta Reddy, Hon’ble Minister for Industries, Government of AP

Mr. G Vinod, Hon’ble Minister for Labour, Employment, Factories and Boilers, Government of AP

Respected dignitaries, Ladies and Gentlemen and my dear friends

It gives me immense pleasure to be part of this event today and I congratulate CII for its proactiveness for bringing this very pertinent issue to this platform comprising cross-section of people such as policymakers, industry etc.

Economic growth in India has, in the last few years, picked up considerable momentum with services and the manufacturing sector showing a great deal of buoyancy. The economy has transitioned into a knowledge and skill-intensive service sector dominated economy in which manufacturing is also picking up. It is this distinctive feat that has put India in the league of fastest growing countries in the world. On the other hand, it has given rise to the issue of insufficient skills in India to meet the growing requirements of the Industry.

For the sustenance of economic growth at about 9% in future, there is a consensus amongst the stakeholders that much greater attention would have to be paid to the area of skill development.

The problems for building people in India can be classified into 3 broad areas:
(i) Problems in Primary education;
(ii) Problems in development of Vocational Skills and
(iii) Problems in Higher Education

In this talk, I will focus on items (ii) and (iii) without touching on the vast issues in Primary education to reduce drop-out rates, reduce illiteracy levels and improve the quality of education.
The essence of the problem in vocational skills is the absence of an adequate focus and orientation in our country in understanding the value and importance of vocations. When we talk of vocations also, we tend to think of them in only old economy terms. There is a need to develop many new skills and vocations which can accelerate our new economy development such as in areas of Digital media, graphic arts, design and digital printing, etc.

In the case of higher education, the essence of the problem is in resolving a paradox of high availability / high unemployment on one hand with a talent crunch on the other. The root cause for this lies in enhancing the quality of higher education beyond a few of the leading Institutions which are, of course, world class and have done the country proud.

Let me now turn to the problems of each of these two areas in some detail.
I. Problems of Vocational Skills:
As per the educational statistics of Ministry of Human Resource Development, total enrollment in technical streams is 7 lakh in engineering, 7.5 lakh in ITI and 4 lakh in polytechnics. Around 110 lakh students are enrolled in other higher education courses across Universities. Out of the total enrollment in University sector, graduates in the conventional streams such as B.A, B.Com and B.Sc outnumber those with professional qualifications with these streams accounting for more than 80% of the enrolment. The prime reason for this skewed distribution of enrollment is lack of capacity to find a place in professional courses.

As far as ITI and polytechnics are concerned, intake and capacity into these courses has been increasing marginally over the years. This is due to limited initiative to market these courses amongst students and increased preference for university level courses due to the perception that higher qualification will lead to better job prospects.

At the school level, there is a lack of awareness and willingness to actively engage in vocational education and training. Against a target enrollment of 25% of all higher secondary students in vocational courses by the year 2000, total enrollment of meagre 3% has been achieved so far. With a utilization of only about 42% of total capacity of 846,100 seats in vocational courses, only about 350,000 to 400,000 students are enrolled in vocational education.

A large number of ITI and polytechnics trained students also suffer from skill deficiencies on account of the obsolescence of curriculum and absence of reasonably latest equipment, tools, and manufacturing/production/delivery processes. The levels of vocational skills amongst labor force in India compares poorly with other countries with only 5% of the Indian labour force in the age group 20-24 obtaining vocational training compared to 96% in Korea and anywhere between 60-80% in other industrialised countries. This emphasizes the point that education system in India is focused on imparting general academic qualification with little or no vocational orientation.

Let me now turn to the issues in higher education.

II. Issues in higher education:

In the first instance, I should acknowledge that the Indian educational system is widely acknowledged as one of the engines of the country’s expansion. The country’s schools are responsible for producing a cadre of highly skilled, English- speaking workers who represent the human capital that has fueled economic growth -particularly growth of the country’s world-class information technology (IT) sector.

To sustain its economic growth, India will have to keep expanding its labor force. The IT sector alone expects its workforce to nearly double over the next three years, from1.6million today to 2.9million in 2009. While IT companies are seeking to recruit so many new workers, other sectors of the economy—including automobiles, aerospace, retail, construction, biotech, healthcare, financial services, travel, and hospitality— are beginning to grow rapidly and are joining the competition for top talent.

As I mentioned earlier, we do have a paradox of both unemployment and talent crunch at the same time. In terms of enrollment, India’s higher education system is the third-largest in the world (only China and the United States are larger). Moreover, India has the largest number of higher education institutions of any country: more than 18,000 institutions (348 universities and 17,625 colleges). The overall size of the country’s higher education system has increased substantially, driven primarily by the establishment of private institutions designed to meet the demand for more education. The number of Indians participating in higher education more than doubled from 4.9 million in 1990 to nearly 10.5 million in 2006. This increase in size has not been matched, however, with an improvement in the quality of higher education, except in our premier Institutions.

The IITs can accommodate only 5,500 new students each year, however, and more than 300,000 individuals compete for these coveted slots each year. Below the limited tier of IIT’s and NIT’s, the quality of Indian higher education falls off sharply.

Except in a few elite institutes, engineering education in India is often outdated and irrelevant. Most graduates do not possess the skills needed to compete in the economy, and industries have been facing a consistent skills deficit. Also, most institutes, including premier institutes, fail to attract and retain quality faculty. These deficiencies in technical and engineering education mean that India runs the risk of missing out on significant opportunities.

In contrast to the United States and most developed countries, the unemployment rate among Indian college graduates—17 percent in the 2001 census—is higher than the unemployment rate for high school graduates. For many Indian graduates, the problem is not just that they lack specific technical skills that industry needs but that they lack the “soft skills”—the ability to listen and to communicate well (in English), to solve problems, and to work collaboratively and creatively—that are among the abilities that many companies are seeking in their new hires.

The shortage of qualified personnel also appears in specialized areas. As India attempts to expand into higher value-added services, for example, it will be hampered by the fact that the country produces only 6,000 PhDs annually in all areas of science and engineering.

The solutions to the Quality problem include, amongst others, the following:
(i) Making Education an attractive career to attract the best quality as Faculty
(ii) Improving quality through Finishing schools where CII has a program for growth of the same
(iii) Vastly expand the reach of e-Learning programs
(iv) A collaborative approach between Government, Institutions and Industry.
Action is suggested as follows:
(i) The Government should lay down the policy framework to bridge the skill gaps and channelise the implementation by appropriately engaging the industry at various levels.
(ii) The educational institutions should strive to improve the quality of education and effectiveness of delivery mechanism to meet the requirements of industry by undertaking measures such as changing curriculum, improving teaching methods and techniques, investing in appropriate infrastructure and working towards enhanced industry – institute interaction.
(iii) Industry, as a consumer of the output of the educational system, needs to support the actions taken by the other stakeholders by participating in the skill development initiatives which could span across various areas such as providing capital to establish institutions or improve institutions, undertaking guest lectures in institutions, participating in cluster level skill development initiatives in collaboration with education institutes, managing all activities involved in imparting appropriate skills by adopting institutes. As Mr. Santhanam pointed out, Industry also has a key role in facilitating interaction between the government, institutions, employers and potential employees.

As far as identification of the most effective implementation mechanism is concerned, I believe that it would vary according to the complexity of skills involved. As rightly pointed out by Mr. Santhanam, the issues of skills deficiencies have to be addressed at three levels: basic skills for entry level / contractual employment, semi-skilled workforce with focus on employability and highly skilled workforce for specialized skills.

It is clearly understood that skill development initiatives at each of the three levels discussed above would call for coordinated efforts from all the three stakeholders but we need to understand the degree of responsibility and nature of involvement of each of the stakeholder in these initiatives? What should be the specific courses / skills to be inculcated at all levels, where should it be funded from, who shall be responsible for execution, how do we ensure consistency of education / training standards, what should be the monitoring and review mechanism to measure efficacy of these initiatives?

These are some of the questions we shall seek answer to during this two day conclave on “Building Skills; Building India” and I am sure there will be fruitful discussions among our panelists on these issues. I also take this opportunity to wish this conclave success in generating awareness about the issues and coming up with innovative ideas which will help in the important national mission of “Building People, Building India.”
Thank You,
Ashok

Words of Wisdom

"Since you usually get what you expect in life, expectthe best for yourself." -- Denis Waitley

"Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely tobe more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks." -- Warren Buffet

"I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done." -- Marie Curie

"I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward." -- Thomas Edison, inventor

"Every failure is a challenge. If taken as a feedback, youare bent to succeed!" -- Unknown

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointedby the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.So throw off your bow-lines. Sail away from the safeharbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.Dream. Discover." -- Mark Twain

An Inspiring Woman

While working with CII in Bangalore, I had an opportunity to meet a person called Shanti Raghavan, Founder and Managing Trustee of EnAble India, an NGO with the mission to empower people with disabilities.

It is hard to describe Shanti’s Profile-Is she a Technocrat, a Social Entrepreneur , a Singer, a fabulous speaker, a thinktank – very hard to define Shanti.

Shanti’s initial encounter with disability was right at home, when her brother was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease which leaves the patient progressively blind with the passage of time. She and her husband, Dipesh, (who is also a Trustee of EnAble India), played an active role in rehabilitating her brother. This was not just limited to orienting him to speech-enabled computers, or identifying tools and techniques for his studies, but also to various outdoor activities such as cycling, rafting, and snorkeling too!

When Shanti returned from US to India in 1997, she decided to set up her own organization, so that she could use her invaluable experience in empowering other disabled people too. EnAble India took birth in 1999, and since then, has been actively involved in Education, Employment, and Rehabilitation of people with disabilities. It currently has over 80 people registered with it.
Most popular is the Computer Center, which caters to nearly 30 students currently, of mixed age groups and education levels, using speech-enabled computers. She has involved herself in many volunteer-driven technology projects that would aid the disabled. She has also associated with various industries for creating awareness and generating employment. She has also conducted several workshops for parents of disabled children.

Shanti’s unique ability is to think big and yet focus on the details. She thinks of herself as a “road builder”. “Everyone”, she says determinedly, “has the right to have a good road”. What really motivates her is the thrill she gets out of realizing the “impossible”. “I’m still a child inside,” she says with a laugh. “I love to see things being done differently – things which are dismissed as impossible, made to happen”.

A multi-faceted woman with an MS in Computer Science from Monmouth University, NJ, Shanti gave up a lucrative career in GE Aircraft Engines as Program Manager and Engineering Manager to concentrate full-time on nurturing EnAble India. She uses her 12 years of experience in the software industry to give substance to her vision, and manage its affairs. Shanti is talented too – she is a Carnatic music singer who has sung in concerts, she’s an excellent mimic, she plays golf, and she loves cycling. A truly inspiring woman!

more on Shanti please log on www.enable-india.org

Medical Devices from Cow

A Biotechnology company called Regeneration Technologies headquartered in Alachua in US is involved in the manufacturing of Medical devices like surgical implants, Precision screws and Spinal wedges from bones, tendons and ligaments of cows. As the company’s name the implants have regenerative properties, leading to faster healing, less pain and greater range of motion than patients get from parts made of metal or plastic.

The company‘s website quotes ‘RTI's innovations continuously raise the bar of science and safety in the allograft industry — from being the first company to offer precision-tooled bone implants for spinal surgeries, to inventing the BioCleanse® Tissue Sterilization Process, the only proven sterilization technology that eliminates viruses, bacteria, fungi and spores from tissue without compromising the biocompatibility and structural properties of the biologic implant. The company is leading the biologics evolution once again by introducing the Sterling® Biological Matrix, providing surgeons an expanded supply of safe, sterile tissue.’

This company is one of the most innovative firms identified by CNN for the year 2007

Development of Rural Enterprises through Public Private Participation.

A new situation is emerging in India. Very rarely in history have we come across such a constellation: an ascending economic trajectory, rising foreign exchange reserves, reducing inflation rates, global recognition of technological competence, energy of 540 million youth, umbilical connectivities of 20 million people of Indian origin abroad, and the interest shown by developed countries to invest in our engineers and scientists, including in new R&D centers.
The Economic boom being witnessed in India is slowly percolating to the Rural areas. Policy makers have noted that unequal development in India can have a debilitating affect in sustaining the economic growth. The Rural Economy in India has shown a different story. Over the years the Rural India have benefited from the growth process and the rural Economy have strengthened. The Corporate Sector in India have been actively working with the Government machinery at the village level and the NGO’s to form a strategic partnership to develop the Rural areas in India. This form of Partnership is not only focused on developing Entrepreneurs and Rural Enterprises but also it is being extended in the areas of Health, Education, Natural Resource Management and enhancing livelihood options.

The association of the Industry with the rural areas has created a paradigm model which is leading to the economic empowerment of the Rural Area. The Indian Industry led by Confederation of Indian Industry has been actively focusing on the development of rural enterprises and rural markets. An example is the Rural Business Hubs, a concept propounded by CII and the Ministry of Panchayathi Raj. CII in partnership with the Ministry of Panchayati Raj is rolling out Rural Business Hubs in Rural areas to help facilitate economic activity in the rural areas which are likely to emerge as the biggest growth markets in the near future. Under the RBH plan, industry, both large and small will come together with farmers or local artisans to enhance the market value of rural products with the objective of market access for the rural poor and profitability across the value chain and creating enterprises in the long run.

Indian Industry believes that that India's rural transformation cannot be brought about by the government alone. Nor can the efforts of a few enterprises make a decisive difference. Only an inspired public-private partnership can transform lives and landscapes in rural India. Indian Industry have demonstrated that it is possible to create and sustain a model that bring together the government, the Industry , the NGO’s and the community on a single platform in supporting and developing rural enterprises.. Indian Industry is partnering with the Government and the local NGO’s in significantly widening its farmer partnerships to embrace a host of value-adding activities: creating livelihoods by helping poor tribals make their wastelands productive; investing in rainwater harvesting to bring much-needed irrigation to parched dry lands; empowering rural women by helping them evolve into entrepreneurs; enhancing livestock quality to significantly improve dairy productivity; providing infrastructural support to make schools and contributing to the development of the rural.

The Corporate sector is also engaged in actively promoting rural enterprises. The Indian Industry is evolving a public private partnership approach in developing these enterprises. India Rural areas are dependent on Agriculture and other allied activities to provide livelihoods for the majority of the population. For India, to meet its goal of reducing poverty by half by 2015 and also to reduce rapid rural-urban migration, non farm economic opportunities in rural areas need to expand. The informal rural economy is largely unregulated and faces crucial resource constraints particularly finance, skills, new technology and knowledge and Management. Here the need for public private participation emerges.

The Indian private sector with its expertise and technological excellence can complement the efforts of the Government in building up rural enterprises and providing the market access for the rural enterprises ultimately leading to economic empowerment and better standard of living. Such a public private partnership approach will lead to market facilitation processes by identifying the business sector and strengthening the competetiveness of the rural economy. Such a partnership also will bring in innovate business ideas and facilitate the sharing of information and best practices which can lead to creation of innovative rural business enterprises