The Indian economy has achieved a nine per cent growth, but surprisingly, the mood in 2008 has largely been introspective. There is a growing realisation in the industry that for the country to truly stake its claim to economic superpower status, we will have to go for inclusive growth. We cannot lose site of the fact that approximately 280 million people live below poverty line today, that 40 million people are unemployed, that of the 320 million children in the age group of 6 and 16, only 10 per cent will be fortunate to finish schooling. The way to empower these millions of people is to equip them with skills, so that they can find livelihood. The numbers pose a huge challenge, but the Indian industry has taken it upon itself to meet this challenge. Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), with its theme ‘Building People - Building India’ has taken a number of initiatives in this regard. Chandrajit Banerjee, DG, CII, shared his organisation's perspective on skilling needs with Meha Mathur. We bring to you excerpts from the interview.
As the head of the apex industry body that is CII, what is your priority for the year?
There have been shifts. In the Eighties, the need of the hour was quality and we were focussing on ISO 9000. Later on we focused on opening up of the country, linking India globally. Even as we integrated with the globe there were fresh challenges — challenges of environment, energy, which CII started addressing, to make the Indian industry more competitive. The issue of competitiveness continued over the Nineties. Then, in the late Nineties and early 2,000 our focus was on getting the manufacturing industry back on track. We witnessed an IT boom and the IT sector putting India on the global map. But also required alongside IT was a strong manufacturing sector. Realising this, we again talked about the competitiveness of manufacturing. And we talked about competitiveness of India Inc. And now, there is a shift, and we talk of 'Building People, Building India'. For India today to be an economic superpower, the first important criteria is to build people. How do we have qualified manpower to build people? Which brings us to the point of skilling, how do we make available a set of skilled manpower which would be able to take India really ahead.
The next priority would be to make India look ahead. Let's look at a horizon of 10 to 15 years from now - and that's where we are working with Prof CK Prahalad. He has given us a vision of India @ 75. And we would like to work towards taking India towards that vision. For that there are actions required by the civil society, government, polity, industry. That will be a focus area for CII.
How can skilling become a national movement, given the numbers that are involved?
Given the numbers that are involved skilling has to be a national movement. When we talk of skilling we need to understand where are the gaps. CII has been working on an analysis of gaps. This is followed by the need to address, where and how will you get these people. All of these people will not come from the best of schools and colleges. They will come from schools, school dropouts, ITIs, districts spread across the country. Therefore in order to get these people, you need a movement across the country.
Which brings me to the national skills development corporation. What will be its modus operandi? How will it benefit the end user, and what will be CII's role in that?
It's an extremely important addition, a very timely initiative. There would be a board with the government and private representatives on it. This would be run very much like a private corporation. And therefore it would have a huge effect in taking this movement across the country. CII would definitely like to participate in this. It has to be an effort from all across the board.
As far as modus operandi is concerned, since it is a private board it would create its own work agenda to take skilling across the country.
Just as you are partnering the University of Delhi and IGNOU for various educational initiatives, can a pan India movement through universities be created?
We are open in partnering universities across the country but we will have to go in a phase-wise manner. Our stage I was to start with Delhi University. We have now signed up with a pan-India organisation like IGNOU, which not only has distance education but also contact education and they are spread across the country. Partnering with IGNOU itself leads us to a reach which will be pan India, which will go beyond the cities. There will be more, as you will see, over a period of time.
When it comes to accreditation and quality control, there's a need for setting parameters. How can the need in skills development area be fulfilled?
While we are looking at people to be skilled, the certification is going to be important because we can't make compromise with any accrediting and standards. The ultimate judge will be the industry. If the industry finds that the people whom they are employing are not serving the purpose despite having a certificate, this movement would have hit a road block sooner or later. The criteria for accrediting organisations is an extremely
critical factor.
CII is working with City and Guilds for accreditation of the various courses. It not only gives skill set requirement that a trade or industry needs. But it also tells us whether the trainers are capable for teaching, and whether the course content is of the right nature as desired by the industry or not. We have idea of what should be the standard. But whetting is being done by specialised
agencies.
But is there any move at the moment to create such an organisation?
You cannot have just one organisation. You will have more. And there is no harm in working with organisations like City and Guilds..
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