Learn and Lead: education

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India as a Skill-based Society

Labels: education, India, Interview, Skill Development, Skill-based Society, skills 1 comments

My interview published in Times Jobs site on 12 May 2016. You can read the original article here.

‘India still gives more importance to degrees than skills’

By TimesJobs.com on May 12, 2016

The country still has a long way to go before becoming a skill-based society, says Manish Mohan of Wadhwani Foundation

Neha Singh Verma, TimesJobs.com

The government should review minimum wages for different skills and set up policies to recognise skilled workers, says Manish Mohan, executive vice president-Skills Development Network at Wadhwani Foundation.

“In the quest to meet numbers, we should not forget to train youth in higher skills and not stop at basic entry-level service skills,” he said in an interview to TimesJobs.com.

He also said corporations need contribute towards training needs of their industry, even if the individuals are not expected to join the company.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

How can the government help individuals with vocational training/ skill development? How are companies providing a helping hand to make India a skill-based hub?

The government is running many schemes to help individuals take up vocational training. Most of these schemes are free for the student and include not just training but also other incentives like travel and paid internships. What the government should do is to stop this free training. It is important for the youth to realise the importance of training. Free training should only be provided in rare situations, like BPL youth.

The corporate sector in my view is not doing enough for making India a skill-based hub. Most corporates do a lot of training, but it is mainly hiring related. Corporates need to contribute towards the training needs of their industry overall, even if the individuals are not expected to join the company. Additionally, corporates must actively participate in curriculum design, providing support for imparting skills through adjunct faculty and commit to internship and apprenticeship programs. The corporates should also help in opening their factories and lab equipment for students undergoing skill development in neighboring areas.

How is India moving towards a skill-based society and what are the hurdles?

India still has a long way to becoming a skill-based society. The biggest hurdle is the social stature of skills and skilled people. As a society, we still give more importance to degrees rather than actual skills. This is reflected in the wages we pay to people with hard skills like carpenters and plumbers. One of the ways in which the government can help is to review minimum wages for different skills and set up policies to recognise the skilled workers. In the quest to meet numbers, we should not forget to train youth in higher skills and not stop at basic entry-level service skills.

How can technology help vocational training and education of the youth?

Technology enables us to overcome the severe shortage of trainers and provides a mechanism of delivering consistent training adhering to quality standards. Technology can also be used to teach complex concepts easily, enabling a wider reach for students and teachers. Many more expert trainers can reach out to a much larger audience through technology which can also connect employers to skilled workforce enhancing their employment opportunities.

To creating a cohesive ecosystem for men and women entrepreneurs, how can roadblocks for women entrepreneurs be removed?

Women play a key role in the country’s growth, both economically and socially. It is imperative that women are not left behind and be encouraged to take on a greater role in our economic growth. Providing incentives for women entrepreneurs will provide a much-needed boost to our growth.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports that the annual growth of the Indian economy could improve 2.4 per cent if the country implements pro-growth and pro-gender policies.

Creating women focused funding, building women-centric mentor networks, providing easier access to education and training, and simplify women oriented support systems like child care and family support can go a long way in harnessing the natural strengths that women bring to entrepreneurship. To remove roadblocks, a National Grievances’ Forum should set up where the problems that women entrepreneurs face in day-to-day work environments are quickly addressed.

Seven Survival Skills in Today’s World

Labels: adaptability, agility, Collaboration, communication, critical thinking, curiosity, education, IFC, imagination, knowledge, ReThinking Education, skill, skills, Tom Wagner, will 0 comments

I recently came across International Finance Corporation’s (IFC). It’s “6th International Private Education Conference, Rethinking Education, Shaping the Future, brought together thought leaders and investors in education from around the globe. On April 1-2, 2014 in San Francisco, USA, the delegates discussed how innovation and technology in education delivery and results measurement are giving us new tools for broadening access to quality education for millions of students around the world.”

Their YouTube channel provides you with access to videos of their conference.

The keynote address to the conference was by Tony Wagner. Tony Wagner “currently serves as an Expert In Residence at Harvard University’s new Innovation Lab. Prior to this appointment, Tony was the first Innovation Education Fellow at the Technology & Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard, and the founder and co-director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for more than a decade. His previous work experience includes twelve years as a high school teacher, K-8 principal, university professor in teacher education, and founding executive director of Educators for Social Responsibility.”

In this video, Tony makes some very pertinent points. Knowledge today has become commodity, available on every Internet connected device. It is no longer a scarce commodity available only with teachers. Because it was a scarce commodity in the past, it was considered that the more knowledge one had, the more value one had in the market place. Today one doesn’t need a teacher to acquire knowledge. And so how can one add value to the market place?

Knowledge is one leg of the stool, which is easy to acquire. The other two legs are Skill and Will. Skill is about asking the questions, how to acquire new knowledge, how to solve new problems. Will is the motivation to use the knowledge and skill.

In his research with companies on what are they looking for in new hires, Tony discovered that the set of core competencies required are very similar, not just to get a job, but to be a continuous learner and be an active and informed citizen. The seven survival skills in today’s world are:

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Critical Thinking is all about knowing how to ask really good questions, how to ask the right questions, not necessarily get the right answers.
Collaboration across Networks and Leading by Influence: Teams are no longer led by supervisors. They are led by peers through influence.
Agility and Adaptability: Schools are in complete contrast with this requirement of the world today with their unchanging environment and syllabus.
Initiative and Entrepreneurial-ship: Companies are not looking for employees who set 4-5 goals and meet all of them. They are looking at employees who set 10 stretch goals and succeeds 7-8 out of them.
Effective Oral and Written Communication: The kids can’t write today because they don’t know how to think. They are also not writing with voice, which is putting their passion and perspective in the conversation to be more persuasive.
Accessing and Analyzing Information: We need to teach the students to be able to search the Internet for information.
Curiosity and Imagination

A Day in the Life of a Student

Labels: Children, education, influences, school, school life, student, studies, thoughts 4 comments

My 10 year old son wrote a creative writing piece as part of his home work that I just had to post here. It has some interesting insights into the lessons of life he might be imbibing at this age. So here it is with due permissions from my son to post it on my blog (with corrected spellings).

A day in the life of a student

As everyone knows that student life is difficult, I would first plan my day so that I don’t have to plan it afterwards. I would go to school, do my homework. But it isn’t as easy as it looks like. Some ma’ams (teachers) give hectic homework which makes my brain heavy as a kilo, and some ma’ams are so sweet that I get overconfident for the UT (Unit Test) she has made and I get bad marks. Some are both so I get confused is she strict or sweet.

There are always two choices, a bad side or a good side. The bad side is full of cool guys and bullies while the good side is full of kids who only study! Half of the bad side becomes prefects and a quarter of the good side become prefects. This student life is so confusing.

So a day in the life of a student if hectic, difficult, confusing and weird.

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