Vocational Training: Whose job is it, anyway?
Raj Kishore Satnami is from the Kendrapada district in coastal Orissa, from where a large number of youngsters migrate to Delhi and Gurgaon to work as plumbers. He too is one of them. He has never been formally trained as a plumber, just picked up the skill on the job, working as an apprentice with a senior plumber. Raj has rarely felt the need for any formal training in his vocation. In early 2008, when the world was waking up to economic recession in the US, the Government of India had a wake-up call. Somewhere, someone in the corroded corridors of power realized that the Indian economy was ailing from - among other things - a serious Skills crisis. As terms such as "Unemployable" and "Skills Gap" found their way into the national HR lexicon, the expected reaction of the government was the formation of the Prime Minister's National Council of Skills Development, comprising senior cabinet ministers and industry stalwarts. The mandate of the council was ...