India wants to become a prominent player in manufacturing, as China’s losing its competitive advantage in this sector.
But at present, India’s manufacturing industry is not in a good shape. Its share of gross domestic product (GDP) is just about 15% (in comparison, it is 30% in the case of China). India has about 500 million workers but the manufacturing sector employs only about 50 million, which is 10% of the total workforce. The growth rate of the sector in 2013-14 has been an abysmal 0.35%.
Realising the need for its intervention, the Centre has launched Make in India mission to increase the competitiveness of India’s manufacturing industry globally. While there are many different plans to revive India’s manufacturing sector, a crucial agenda is skill development.
Industry needs a steady supply of skilled manpower. Only 10% of India’s workforce is skilled. Of the 10% only 2% of the workforce is formally certified – the rest 8% have acquired skills only through informal training and employment. In South Korea, Japan and Germany, the percentage of workforce with skills training is 96, 80 and 75 respectively.
In order to increase the share of skilled employees in the total workforce, the government has been promoting various skill development programmes. It has set a target of skilling 500 million people by 2022.
One of the important action plans is to breathe a new life into the vocational and industrial training, and promote apprenticeship schemes. There are about 11,500 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) in the country. They have the capacity to train about 16 lakh students every year. But ITIs are not attracting talent, thanks largely to its outdated curricula. As someone put, our ITIs are teaching how carburetors work though carburetors are no longer used in cars and other automobiles.
Other than ITIs there are many players in vocational education or skill based training. Private training institutes in different streams are preparing people for specific trades, crafts and careers in engineering, accountancy, nursing, medicine, architecture, pharmacy, and law. The contribution of private institutions towards skill development is vital.
India may have the world’s most youngest population but it needs to harness the demographic dividend through appropriate skill development efforts and make the local manufacturing sector truly global.