Access to Skills Development

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• Technical Education Quality Improvement Project III

  The development objective of the Technical Education Quality Improvement Project for India is to enhance quality and equity in participating engineering education institutes and improve the efficiency of the engineering education system in focus states. The project will support two components: (a) Improving quality and equity in engineering institutes in focus states will focus on improving quality and equity in engineering education in all government and government-aided colleges and technical universities, including the ATUs, in Andaman and Nicobar Islands (a union territory [UT]), LIS, states in the North East of India, and hill states. These states and UT have been chosen to ensure equitable development of the engineering education system across the country, given their lower performance relative to well performing states (referred to as “other states” throughout). It has three sub-components. (i) institutional development for participating institutes; (ii) widening impact through ATUs; and (iii) twinning arrangements to build capacity and improve performance of participating institutes. (b) system-level initiatives to strengthen sector governance and performance will support the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and key apex bodies in engineering education, including the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and National Board of Accreditation (NBA), to strengthen sector governance, management, accountability mechanisms and performance in the overall system of engineering education.

• Uttarakhand Workforce Development Project

  The development objectives of Uttarakhand Workforce Development Project for India are to improve the quality and relevance of training at priority Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and to increase the number of labor-market-relevant workers through short-term training in Uttarakhand. This project has three components. 1) The first component, Improving the Quality and Relevance of ITI Training, aims to (a) improve the delivery of labor-market-relevant training and (b) increase the number of graduates in labor-market- relevant trades from the ITI system. It ahs the following subcomponents: (i) Comprehensive improvement of quality and relevance of priority It is; (ii) Professional development of ITI teachers and staff; (iii) Strengthening industry linkages; and (iv) Institutional capacity development of the skills development system. 2) The second component, Increasing the number of Skilled Workers through Short-term Training, aims to increase the number of workers in the labor market who have been trained under nationally recognized market-relevant trades compliant with the National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF) through short-term training conducted by the Skills Development Mission (SDM). 3) The third component, Policy and Institutional Development and Project Management, consists of technical assistance (TA) and institutional capacity development activities to support the designing and implementation of Components 1 and 2 activities and to enhance the administrative capacity of the GoUK’s skills, including the Department of Skill Development and Employment (DSDE), and the overall skills sector profile. It has the following subcomponents: (i) Technical assistance for institutional strengthening; and (ii) Monitoring and evaluation (M and E) and project management.

• Nai Manzil - Education and Skills Training for Minorities

  The development objective of the Nai Manzil : Education and Skills Training for Minorities Project for India is to improve completion of secondary education and market-driven skills training for targeted youth from minority communities. The project comprises of two components. The first component is results based financing for increased education attainment and market-driven training. The second component, technical assistance for implementation of the Nai Manzil scheme objective is to strengthen capacity of the Ministry of Minority Affairs (MoMA) for project implementation, planning, and policy development.

• Skills Strengthening for Industrial Value Enhancement Operation

  The objective of the Skills Strengthening for Industrial Value Enhancement Operation Project for India is to improve access to quality and market-driven vocational training provided in ITIs and apprenticeships. India’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 7.6 percent in 2015-16 steadily recovering from a low of 5.1 percent in 2012–13. This GDP growth was largely supported by robust consumption growth on the expenditure side and strong growth in the services sector, averaging more than 9 percent between 2012 and 2015, on the production side, although a recovery of industrial value added in 2015–16 was notable. With growth, poverty has declined rapidly from 38.9 percent in 2004–05 to 21.6 percent in 2011–12 (1.90 purchasing power parity per day) at a pace significantly faster than that witnessed in earlier periods. Poverty reduction was supported by greater rural-urban integration, increase in nonfarm wage employment, especially in construction, and higher rural wage growth. Given the cooling of the latter two trends in the past three years, it is likely the pace of poverty reduction moderated. Going forward, India’s growth prospects remain bright. A million youth will enter the labor market every month for the next two decades, and India will soon have one of the youngest and largest working-age populations in the world. These demographic dynamics and a rising age-savings profile are likely to generate significant volumes of savings and investment over the coming years. The average schooling of the working-age population, and, consequently, worker productivity, will increase by at least a full year until 2030 even with no further improvements in the educational attainment of today’s youth (that is, simply because younger cohorts are better educated) and could rise much faster if further progress is achieved on the education agenda. The proportion of population living i

• Skill India Mission Operation

  The objective of the Skill India Mission Operation Project for India is to enhance institutional mechanisms for skill development and increase access to quality and market-relevant training for the workforce. There is no change in the overall scope of the program. While the project will continue to support implementation of the Government’s SD strategy, as outlined in the National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, over six years (2017–2023), the regulatory framework has been re-designated by the MSDE post an approval by the Union Cabinet of Ministers. The operation will continue to focus on enhancing institutional mechanisms at the national and state levels, including partnerships with industry and employers, to increase the market relevance of short-term SD programs and scale up their delivery. Hence, there is no change to the PDO.

• Labor market impacts and effectiveness of skills development programs in 5 states in India : Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Rajasthan

  Over the past few years, the Government of India (GOI) has been implementing five large national skills development (SD) programs to improve the employment and earnings prospects of urban and rural youth. The critical questions to be addressed are: what have been the employment outcomes of those programs?; what earnings premium do one give to trainees?; do program benefits justify the significant public investments made into them?; what organizational aspects affect delivery and reach?; and finally, based on these findings, what should be the course of action? This paper tries to address these questions, using data from a set of surveys of trainees (past and current), non-trainees (comparison group), employers, and training providers. The quantitative analysis has been complemented by a qualitative study based on interviews and focus group discussions, with focus on business processes, program management, and monitoring and evaluation (M and E). Five states have been taken into consideration for this analysis: Assam, Andhra Pradesh (AP), Madhya Pradesh (MP), Odisha, and Rajasthan. This paper comprises several sections. The first section provides introduction. Section two presents skills development programs; section three presents employment outcomes of SD programs; section four presents wage and earnings effects of SD programs; section five is cost-effectiveness of SD programs; section six is India versus international experience; section seven presents findings from the qualitative study; and section eight gives conclusions and policy recommendations.