It is well-known that our educational ecosystem is not particularly good at blending learning with working, or learning with working. There are numerous programmes in our schools and higher education institutions that focus on practical learning through project works, group activities, competitions, hackathons, and so on — all appreciable initiatives; but their existence proves that we believe learning as a process is different from working, and that one has to learn to work before beginning to work.
Experts explain apprenticeship as, “a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training.” That is precisely how learning went about in earlier times. If a person wanted to excel in goldsmith art, he/she went to work with a goldsmith and learnt the intricacies of his art. Today, we have confined that duration to a certain period of leave from formal learning. That way we fail to understand the due significance of one of the oldest forms of learning known to mankind.
Bridging the gap
Today, apprenticeship holds the potential to emerge as a solution to many industry-related problems. We have been listening to industry pundits talk about our engineers not being industry-ready and our MBAs not being competent enough to be employable. This is happening despite us constantly, and to some extent successfully, elevating the standards of our educational institutions on par with international benchmarks. There is clearly a gap between the jobs that are vacant and the workforce that is available to fill the roles.
We should start by creating awareness about how there can be no viable substitution for the experience that students obtain when they work in the industry. Therefore, apprenticeship is the clear answer to the widening gap between our education and job roles.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development and the newly-formed Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship have outlined substantial plans for promoting apprenticeship, with MHRD coming up with the National Apprenticeship Training Scheme (NATS) and National Employability Enhancement Mission (NEEM), while MSDE has introduced the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS).
The distribution of candidates amongst these and the lack of seamless communication between concerned schemes often end up creating unnecessary hassles for the industry. This has had detrimental implications on the success of these programmes. Despite willingness to hire apprentices, industries tend to do so by private means, ignoring the government’s offerings.
To avoid such a situation, we have to sketch ways to lure companies into cooperating more with the government-run programs. Opening a single window — at the industry’s end, to help them find and hire apprentices fit for available job roles — could help. This will not only decrease the inconvenience caused to recruiters, but also encourage them to hire more apprentices from the larger pool of diverse options available.
A large chunk of candidates who opt for industry apprenticeship are doing so while pursuing their higher education. Our country’s higher education framework is often subject to criticism from various factions of intelligentsia for failing to accommodate diverse learning platforms. Apprenticeship solves this problem to some extent, but is limited in operation as students cannot be present at two places simultaneously. Higher education institutes have to abide by archaic rules and regulations when it comes to minimum classroom attendance. Confining talent into a room, where it is uncertain if they will grasp whatever is being taught, is definitely a system that needs to reconsidered.
It would be wise to accommodate broader learning processes such as apprenticeships or skilling programmes, leaving it to the student to decide the mode of learning he/she is most inclined towards. With high-tech tools providing us numerous monitoring means, the institutes can track if the student is being regular in his/her endeavours through means of an AADHAR-based or GPS-based authentication system.
The industry should start appreciating apprentices by providing them with what they seek the most from their programme — training. These days, we often hear from apprentices that they are made to do inferior jobs and are treated like second-grade employees. This must end. In fact, to enable fruitful learning experience, employers must seriously consider hiring training partners (TPs) to skill their apprentices in areas which are not covered in the course of their regular work. This training could coincide with work, with separate times allotted for formal training and regular work.
For ‘Make in India’ to be fruitful, we need our youth to be passionate about penetrating the industries and understanding their work environment. Countries such as Japan, the U.K., and China understood this early and have excelled. We should draft a policy around providing a push to apprenticeship that looks beyond convention in our higher education framework.
Options
The National Apprenticeship Training Scheme (NATS) is a one-year programme equipping technically qualified (engineering degree or technical diploma) youth with practical knowledge and skills required in the field of work.
National Employability Enhancement Mission (NEEM) aims to offer on-the-job (OJT) practical training to enhance employability of graduates/diploma holders or students pursuing graduation/diploma to increase their employability in any technical or non-technical stream or have discontinued studies of degree or diploma course.
The National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS) is an apprentice scheme which covers all categories of apprentices except the Graduate, Technical and Technician (Vocational) apprentices. The duration of apprenticeship varies from one or two years. It’s high time that apprenticeship is brought to the mainstream education and skill ecosystem. If we want our talented youth to be the torch-bearers of industry, then we must do the needful in ensuring that they have the necessary ‘light’ to fire that torch.
The writer is Director (Business Services), AISECT.
