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NN46, September 2011

Towards a New Global World of Skills Development? TVET's turn to Make its Mark

Skills Development: Does it Really Expand Opportunities for Marginalized Groups?

By Anita Sharma, GIZ, New Delhi

Keywords: marginalized youth; skill acquisition vs utilization; NGO traditions of skills for marginalized; government use of NGOs for skills in the new Mission mode.

Summary: Skills development for marginalized and underprivileged youth has been the forte of non-government organizations, and largely kept outside the government system. However, to fulfill the Prime Minister’s target of training 500 million youth by 2022, there have been efforts to engage with NGOs and reach marginalized groups. This paper reports the development in this regard and analyses the gaps in the system.

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Skills development does expand opportunities for all who participate in it – the statement stands true also for the marginalized groups. However, the major difference lies in capacity of trained or skilled persons to utilize the skills learnt, which brings up the need of a different kind of packaging of skills training programs for marginalized youth. Experience shows that skill training for marginalized groups becomes effective and productive when considered as part of larger empowerment agenda; or linked with related livelihood skills. This may be in various forms, for example:

Placement linked skills training
Skills training as part of micro-enterprise development
Skills training linked with micro-finance for self-employment
Skilling self-help groups and supporting group enterprises
Skill training as part of cluster development program, etc

Such programs require not just designing and delivering appropriate market relevant skills training, but require a larger focus on both backward and forward linkages.

Backward linkage here refer to engagement with communities - mobilizing youth not only for identifying their training needs, but also for raising awareness among groups on skills training, counseling them, etc.
Forward linkage would imply finding venues for employment, mobilizing support for self employment, linkages with financial schemes, marketing support & linkages, etc. – which is the package extended to the trained youth for supporting productive use of their skills.

The training offers of these NGO training providers are designed and delivered as per the broad need of the target group – their literacy level, the outcome expected, etc; as well as the capacities of the NGO.

The extent of engagement that NGOs are expected to deliver is explicit in the evaluation report of a project “Economic Empowerment through Strengthening Functional Vocational Training on Viable Trades and Skills for Marginalized Communities in Eight States of India’ (2007-2009), which brought forward the following:

1. Left on their own, not many trained youth were able to find employment. They indulged in casual work and income generating activities, where they got only marginal increase in income, as compared to what they were earning as unskilled worker. Only selected few (probably those who were better networked), were able to move out and make their skills a success.
2. NGOs which worked closely with potential employer organizations and designed course curricula, delivered training as per the employers needs, were able to place almost 80-90% of trained youth in productive employment.
3. As most NGOs try to take training to the communities, the youth after completion of training are expected to move to the place of the job. This is challenging for the youth and they look on to the training institution for preparation and support.
4. In case of self-employment, success comes easy if the training provider extends regular support for linking for financing, marketing etc, and provides guidance from time-to-time for proper accounting, customer relationship, & similar aspects during the initial stage.
5. For women, the skills training gave them opportunity to engage in income generation – those who were not able to take regular employment, preferred working part time from home. Earning small income was not a problem, especially as they were happy to add to the family income. There were clear signs of socio-economic empowerment.

Due to the non-formal nature of the skills training extended to reach the marginalized youth & communities, these interventions had largely been outside the Government vocational training program. However, with the launch of the Prime Minister’s National Skills Mission of skilling 500 million youth by 2022, which translates into skilling all those who have dropped out of formal education system, it became necessary to include the marginalized youth in the Skilling Mission.

Accordingly, the Skills Development Initiatives of the Government of India have included a large focus on skilling marginalized and BPL (below poverty line) youth through the Ministry of Rural Development scheme – ‘Placement linked skills training program for marginalized youth’. The scheme targets skilling 10 million rural BPL youth by 2022. And to reach these youth, there was no better way than to utilize the existing institutional network from private, public and NGO sectors, by providing financial support for ‘skills training linked with placement’ program. The training providers are expected to identify market relevant training needs, design curricula, deliver training and place trained youth in jobs.

Most training providers have found the task comparatively easy, specially extending the skill training. However, the challenging part has been – firstly, mobilizing the youth from the defined target group and - secondly, placing the trained youth in jobs where they could earn more than the prescribed minimum wages in the state (this being one of the condition under the scheme).

The progress so far shows that NGOs like Don Bosco, Rural Livelihood Mission, etc., which have been working closely with community, have performed satisfactorily. The private skills training providers and the few government agencies find it rather taxing to mobilize marginalized youth from the rural and other BPL communities and get them for skills training. In one of the review meetings with MoRD, these organizations proposed that ‘placement’ level should be revised to 60% as against 75% as laid out in the scheme.

Approx 500,000 youth have since been trained; and 60% of these placed in various organizations – mostly in service sector. The employers, which are mostly the private sector organizations, are happy to employ these semi-skilled BPL youth at entry level salaries – tho’ sometimes the salaries are even lower than the minimum wages prescribed by the State Government.

There are major gaps in the programs administered, which need to be addressed for effective results. The most glaring one is that institutional capacities of the agencies participating in the program were not strengthened for improved skills training delivery. It has been a well known fact that NGO training providers suffer from limited capacities. Therefore, the:

1. Quality of skills training extended by them is very basic:
1. a. Training is short term, skill specific and does not aim at improving the academic & vocational qualification as a whole. Hence, the exit level remains as – ‘making the person skilled enough to be placed in an entry level job’. MoRD programs are of 3 months – placement linked skills training; Modular Employable Schemes have 180 to 300 hours programs; it is not possible to make the youth competent in related competencies to be fit for job;
2. b. NGOs are not known for their training management skills – they learn by doing; draw crude curricula and deliver training to the limited capacities of trainers. As the scheme includes no training framework, the quality of training under the scheme would depend on the capacities of the individual organization & trainer. There is no quality framework defined for these organizations – each one works their own way. MORD has also not specified any quality terms except for placement linkages, which is not always a quality issue.
3. c. Curricula are not relevant to the market needs – lack of professionalism is evident in most of the group which is prepared for self-employment and income generating activities but the basic skills of marketing and accounting are not included in training packages. Components of ‘business skills’ are not integrated into vocational skills, leading to poor preparation of youth for entering the market
4. d. Even the donor agencies like EU, Misereor, etc have not been able to extend quality controls on the NGOs they support for furthering the agenda of skills training.

2. The scheme focuses on entry-level pre-employment training of short duration. No options for further upgradation or training have been accommodated in the scheme. Hence, these marginalized youth have not been provided for future options of making a career out of the skill training. Institutional framework for further training and upgrading of skills is also lacking in the country.
3. Though the training leads to placement, all trainees are not satisfied with income they earn and find strong need to either change their line of occupation or compensate the same with other activities – like farming.
4. Most importantly, at the larger policy level, these programs face a major threat as the level of income they generate is comparatively low – sometimes lower than the minimum wages in some states; and also lower than the compensation received under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Unless the skill training results in better financial returns, the sense of empowerment with vocational skills does not become a reality.

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Cite article as: Sharma, A., (2011) ‘Skills Development: Does it Really Expand Opportunities for Marginalized Groups?’, in NORRAG NEWS, Towards a New Global World of Skills Development? TVET's turn to Make its Mark, No.46, September 2011, pp. 53-56, available: http://www.norrag.org

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