Vocational training: Bridging the skill gap

Vocational training: Bridging the skill gap: Financing technical vocational education and training (VET) is costlier than general education due to its technical nature. Pre-service training requires the installation of equipment and trained...



Skill management

The well-researched article “Bridging the skill gap” by Santhosh Mehrotra (The Hindu, August 3) has looked at various options on funding skill development. In a wider sense, just as costs on social security needs including for post-retirement life of the workforce should be factored in the wage bills of employers, there is a need to create an awareness about the responsibility on the part of employers including the government and PSUs to fund the cost of skill development.
The fast changes in science and technology these days, call for ongoing training and frequent refreshment courses to maintain skills at optimum levels. Times are changing and sooner we reconcile to the reality that the option to ‘outsource’ for reducing costs and eliminating friction (read unionism) may not be perennially available, the better.

A related issue is large scale abuse of trained manpower. Civil and mechanical engineers and graduates with high academic records from any discipline are being recruited by several sectors including IT and given basic training in branches of technology of respective relevance for being employed by corporates. Beyond cost-benefit issues, this has a job satisfaction issue which creates more social problems at a later stage. One remembers a time when P & T and Railways in India absorbed the best performers at SSLC level as clerks.

M G Warrier






































































































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