Skill Development in India : The Vocational Education and Training System
This paper stresses that despite the fact that India is a fast developing economy difficulties have led the Government to conclude that far more needs to be done to engender more employment opportunities for the majority of Indians, to enable them...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC
2014
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2008/01/8988435/skill-development-india-vocational-education-training-system http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17937 |
| Summary: | This paper stresses that despite the
fact that India is a fast developing economy difficulties
have led the Government to conclude that far more needs to
be done to engender more employment opportunities for the
majority of Indians, to enable them to participate in the
benefits of growth and to contribute to that growth. To do
this they must have education and training that equips them
for the labor market. One of the sources of the skilled
workforce is the vocational education and training system.
However, the government realizes that the system is not
being able to appropriately respond to the needs of the
labor market. A key issue, then, is what
reforms/interventions are needed to improve the
effectiveness of the system. Answering that question is far
from easy and this paper attempts to provide some options
for doing so. On the one hand India faces the future with
its changing realities; on the other hand it must deal with
the nature of its established traditions and structures.
This paper has laid out some key reforms that must be
undertaken in different areas to make the vocational
education and vocational training systems more responsive to
the needs of the labor market. The reform agenda is fairly
comprehensive and all the reforms cannot be implemented
immediately. Given this, the paper has laid out some of the
critical reforms that need to be undertaken in the short-run
(first phase) followed by others that can be undertaken over
a period of 2-3 years. The first phase focuses on reforms
aimed at improving the quality and labor market relevance of
the existing system, while the medium-term agenda also
includes moving forward on mobilizing additional resources
for the system, especially once the quality has improved.
However the background work needed to undertake reforms in
the medium-term should also commence immediately. These
reforms should be treated as a package. If only some are
instituted, while others are not, it is unlikely that the
objective of developing a truly demand-responsive system
will be effectively met. |
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