Vocational education and training (VET) in India: Scope and Challenges

Next we turn to Vocational education and trainings (VET), it consists basically of practical courses through which one gains skills and experience directly linked to a career in the future. It helps students to be skilled and in turn, offers better employment opportunities. These trainings are parallel to the other conventional courses of study (like B.Sc., M.Sc., etc). Vocational trainings in a way give students some work related experiences that many employers look for.

Different institutions which impart vocational training can be classified into five categories: (i) Government, (ii) Local body, (iii) Private aided, (iv) Private unaided, and (v) not known. According to a NSSO report (2009-10) vocational training is received by only 10% of persons aged between 15-29 years. Out of this only 2% receive formal training, while non-formal training constitutes the remaining 8%. Out of the formal training received by that particular age group, only 3% are employed. The most sought after field of training is computer related training. The Vocational Training in India is imparted by mainly two types of bodies:

Public Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs)

Private owned Industrial Training Centres (ITCs)

According to the Planning Commission Report for the 11th Five Year Plan, there are about 5,114 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) imparting training in 57 engineering and 50 non-engineering trades. Of these, 1,896 are State Government-run ITIs while 3,218 are private. The total seating capacity in these ITIs is 7.42 lakh (4 lakh seats in government ITIs and the remaining 3.42 lakh in private ITCs). However, only 20% of formal vocational training is received from ITI/ITCs.

Challenges

Though there is a growing demand for vocationally trained workers, the segment per se has not really picked up in India because of a variety of reasons. Historically, social stigma has been attached to vocational education and training as manual or industrial jobs were perceived as low paying and meant for low-caste communities. Good trainers have always been an issue with vocational education in India. Because of societal pressures, the segment has failed to attract good mentors. Teachers in general are poorly paid in India and the salaries of teachers in VET have been at the lower end of the spectrum.

In some states, the course curriculum has not been updated for 20 or more years, so even if students have completed VET qualifications, they may not be employable in modern industry. Due to the transition of the Indian economy from being agriculture-based to knowledge-based, it is all the more imperative to have new and revised courses which fulfill the requirement of modern industries. Of the trained candidates, the labour market outcomes as seen from placement/ absorption rates are reportedly very low. The current framework requires minimum qualifications, varying from Class VII-XII, for participation in formal vocational training. While this may be necessary for certain trades, it is unnecessarily restrictive in others. Additionally, once an individual leaves mainstream education for vocational training, there is no provision for him/her to return to the former at a later stage.

Overcoming Challenges

Recommendations for the improvement of this system can be as follows: the training courses lack focus on the changing job market. As a result, it was seen from various reports that the number of students is declining for long term vocational courses. Creating job opportunities regionally can help maintain the equilibrium. Funding for the public ITIs is very low as compared to other countries like China and USA which have restructuring-funds, whose share goes for improvement of vocational training systems in order to achieve international quality. To attract more students from school level, reorientation of vocational courses is needed. They should be floated parallel to main courses as credit courses. Promote public private partnership to increase the effective supply of Institutes.

Higher Education in India: Achievements andChallenges

The emphasis in the past decade was on enhancing supply and increasing access to quality education. Consequently, the Indian higher education witnessed particularly high growth in the last decade, with enrollment of students increasing at a CAGR of 10.8% and institutions at a CAGR of 9%. However, in spite of the significant progress made during the past few years, India’s higher education sector is still plagued with several challenges, e.g., its relatively low GER, inequitable access to higher education by community, gender and geography, and lack of high-quality research and education institutions, resulting in sub-optimal outcomes.

Gross Enrolment Ratio or GER for higher education (both degree and diploma programs), as a percentage of the population in the eligible age cohort of 18-23 years, has increased from13.1% in 2007-08 to 18% in 2011-12. Even though our higher education system is one of the largest in the world, the GER is far below the world average. Increased enrolments in the Eleventh Plan have enabled Indian higher education to cross the threshold of 15% GER, moving the country from an ‘elite’ to a ‘mass’ higher education system. Despite this growth, the unmet demand for access to higher education remains significant, indicating that a further expansion of access to higher education is required. Even though GER at the national level is 20%, there are wide inter-state variations. Delhi, Chandigarh and Puducherry, which attract a large number of students from outside their states, have GERs exceeding 25% while states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Rajasthan, Orissa and West Bengal have significantly lower GERs. This suggests a need for state-specific strategies in addressing issues of expansion of higher education during the Twelfth Plan period. When we look at the other characteristics we find that higher education system lacks on other fronts as well for example according to Twelfth Plan our system suffers from faculty shortage  that is there exists 40% and 35% shortage of faculty in state and central universities, respectively. Around 62% of universities and 90% of colleges in India are average or below average in 2010 on the basis of their NAAC accreditation. India’s relative citation impact is as low as half the world average. Higher education sector also faces lower female enrolment when compared to male and lower Muslims, SCs and STs enrollment over general categories.

Overcoming Challenges

Some of the recommendations for higher education can be laid out as follows: Expand capacity by establishing new universities, Establish colleges in backward districts, colleges should provide credit and non credit courses in the form of employment oriented programmes. Improve quality in existing colleges through increasing salaries, promoting research, encouraging private participation. Ensure access for all deserving students through scholarships, promote Distance Education. Reform in Professional Education is crucial in building a knowledge society. Therefore reform in governance, accreditation mechanisms and curriculum revisions should be done to promote quality.

India, Social Infrastructure: Challenges and Solutions

It has been found that, improvement in social infrastructure, such as education and health, can sustain the service-led growth that depends mainly on the availability of skilled and productive human power (Dash and Sahoo, 2014). Social infrastructure, such as education, health, and housing, is essential to promote better utilization of physical infrastructure and human resources, thereby leading to higher economic growth and improving quality of life (Hall and Jones 1999; De and Ghosh, 2003). For example, Hall and Jones (1999) argue that international differences in levels of output-per-worker are determined by differences in human capital, physical and social infrastructure. Further, Wagstaff (2002) noted that up to 1.7% of annual economic growth in East Asia between 1965 and 1990 (about half the total GDP increase for the period) has been attributed to massive improvements in public health and education. Against this backdrop, there have been concerted efforts in recent years to improve both physical and social infrastructure facilities in India. To assess the impact of Government’s effort, in the next two subsections we will discuss various indicators pertaining to health and education and then we will try to point out the shortcoming and suggest various policy changes that can bring about a change in the two sectors

1.1 Health

At the turn of the century India’s Life Expectancy is lagged behind the average for high income, BRCS and East Asian countries as well as for China. India’s healthcare infrastructure has not kept pace with the economy’s growth. The physical infrastructure is woefully inadequate to meet today’s healthcare demands, much less tomorrows. While India has several centers of excellence in healthcare delivery, these facilities are limited in their ability to drive healthcare standards because of the poor condition of the infrastructure in the vast majority of the country. This is reflected in the numbers of Physicians as well as hospital beds, which were 0.65 and 0.9 respectively in the year 2011. These numbers are at least three times smaller than China and East Asia. The main reason cited behind these formidable challenges faced by health care system in India is public spending on medical, public health, and family welfare in India which is much below what is required. Between 1996-97 and 2005-06, total government spending on health was stagnant at about 1 percent of GDP, and the public expenditure elasticity with respect to GDP was at 0.94, lower than the average for low-income countries (1.16) for the same period (Tandon and Cashin, 2010). Despite efforts to increase public spending after 2005-06 including the adoption of NRHM, under which spending on health care is expected to increase to 2-3 percent of GDP the expenditure, increased only marginally to 1.2 percent of GDP in 2011. This has resulted in poor quality of preventative care and poor health status of the population. The inadequate level of public health provision has forced the population to seek private health providers resulting in high Out of Pocket spending. Out of Pocket spending in India is over four times higher than the public spending on health care.

Drinking water supply and sanitation in India continue to be inadequate, despite longstanding efforts by the various levels of government and communities at improving coverage. The level of investment in water and sanitation, albeit low by international standards, has increased during the 2000s. Access has also increased significantly. For example, at national level in 1990 sanitation coverage was estimated at 17% and reached 25% in 2000 and 35% in 2011. Also, the share of Indians with access to improved sources of water has increased significantly from 72% in 1990 to 81% in 2000 to 91.6 in 2011. At the same time, local government institutions in charge of operating and maintaining the infrastructure are seen as weak and lack the financial resources to carry out their functions. In addition, only two Indian cities have continuous water supply and an estimated 69% of Indians still lack access to improved sanitation facilities.

Moving to water source and sanitation facilities at the disaggregated level we find that in rural areas, where 72% of India’s population lives, the respective shares are 89% for water and only 35% for sanitation for the year 2011. In urban areas, 96% had access to an improved water source and 59% to improved sanitation. Though, access has improved substantially yet it falls short of the facilities available at the international level.

1.2 Education

India has a large school going population. To accommodate this school going population, it requires a strong educational infrastructure in order to keep pace with the developing economy and provide it with quality manpower. Education can accelerate economic growth and investment is a key indicator to expand and improve quality of education.

The education sector in India is experiencing rapid expansion and change. Governments (both Central and State) have implemented new initiatives and increased spending to encourage greater enrolment and attendance at the school level. Both Central and state governments have continued to accord a high priority to expanding the supply of education and increasing participation, especially at the primary level. The universalization of elementary education, defined in India as grades one to eight, was given a renewed impetus in April 2010 when the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act came into force. In the light of these initiatives we take a look at Education sector characteristics measured by enrollment, literacy rate, pupil teacher ratio public spending etc to take a stock of current situation in India in comparison with International achievement.

In higher education they are seeking to implement wide-ranging changes to the regulatory framework. At the same time the rising affluence and aspirations of households is spurring strong demand for education at all levels and the traditional dominance of the public sector as a provider of education is receding. The dual challenge now is to build on the considerable progress made in lifting participation and, equally importantly, improve the quality of education outcomes. To meet these objectives reform momentum needs to be maintained and broadened. This is especially so given the pace of development in the Indian economy, the changing needs of households and businesses, and the considerable lags between changes in education policies and outcomes.

First we look at the gap in adult literacy rates among India, China and East Asia has stayed nearly the same since last 10 years, however, it has narrowed among youth. While all the countries groups and China’s overall literacy rate in 2011 was around 100 percent, India came out way behind them at 63 percent. The divide in case of youth was much smaller with India being at 81 per cent. In addition to literacy rate, average years of schooling is another commonly used indicator to measure education attainment. Average years of schooling obtained by Indians were half or less than half when compared to other group of countries in the data set.

As a fraction of its GDP, public education expenditure in India has been higher than that of China during the last two decades. Expenditure per student in primary, secondary and tertiary sector for the year 2011 was 7, 14 and 70 percent of GDP per capita for India while that of China was 6, 11 and 90. The expenditure on students in tertiary sector is higher in India than that of high income, BRCS and East Asian countries. But the same number for primary and secondary education is not even comparable.

Enrolment rates have significantly improved in elementary education; the Gross Enrolment Ratio grew from 94 percent in 2001 to 112 percent in 2011. Though this number look quite large and is in comparison with all the other group of countries yet the transition has been very slow. For example the gross primary enrollment rate in China had exceeded 100 since 1985 and India reached that figure only in 2000.

The secondary enrollment rate was about 45 percent for India in 2000, and has been increasing ever since and now it is around 63.2. The tertiary enrollment rate has increased from 9 percent to 18 percent over the matter of a decade. Nevertheless, by international standards enrolment at the secondary and tertiary level remains low, particularly the latter. Much less than 104 and 68 of high income economies for 2011 which we target to achieve.

Teaching staff constitutes a vital aspect of education. Pupil teacher ratio (PTR) is one of the critical indicators of education. It may provide insight to measure the quality of education. The data reveals that the PTR is quite low at primary and middle level figuring 30.2 and 25.3 respectively about twice when compared to China and other group of countries and needs improvement. Thus it is imperative to improve PTR to enhance quality of education and to make human resource globally competitive.

Growth in private institutions has been significant during the Eleventh Plan period, with 98 private state universities, 13 private deemed universities, 6,335 private colleges, and 2,321 private diploma institutions being set up during this period. In 2012, 28.3% of all elementary students i.e. those in the age group 6 -14 years who are enrolled in schools, attended private schools, in comparison to 18.7% in 2006. Most institutions of secondary and higher education are driven by the private sector; private institutions make up 60% of all secondary schools in 2010-11, and 63% of all higher education institutes with 52% of the share of students in 2010. The privatization of education sector is adding to the weight of overburdened middle and lower income families.

However, in spite of the significant progress made during the past few years, India’s education sector is still plagued with several challenges, e.g., its relatively low GER, inequitable access to higher education by community, gender and geography, and lack of high-quality research and education institutions, resulting in sub-optimal outcomes. The quality of learning across all levels of the education system is abysmally low. All surveys unanimously point to one direction “extremely poor learning outcomes across-the-board”. Urban schools are not significantly better than rural schools and the vast majority of private schools are not much better than government schools. About half of the primary school students are three classes below the levels they ought to be in reading and even more in arithmetic. These appalling outcomes continue or are even exacerbated at the secondary and higher levels. High school children do not have basic conceptual understanding. Students entering the workforce have very low employability. Clearly, raising the quality of education is the biggest challenge in our educational system. Keeping this in mind we will now look at some of the problems infested in education and health sector of India and what are the possible solutions to tackle them.

1.3 Roadblocks in Health and Education

Both large survey-based studies as well as case studies have repeatedly shown that education and health services in India are characterized by (i) inadequate and inferior infrastructure; (ii) poor public service delivery; (iii) lack of quality choices for consumers; and (iv) lack of access especially for the poor due to a high dependence on relatively expensive privately provided services. In this subsection we will discuss some of the challenges faced by health and education sector and how they undermine the impact expected.

Health – Key Challenges

• Adverse Impact of User Fees & Privatization of Health Services
• Focus on Women is missing
• Public Expenditure on Health: insufficient, inefficient 

Education – Key Challenges

• Investment In Public Education still Limited
• School learning and higher education quality remain low
• Quality Education Has Not Reached the Most Marginalized
• Right to Education- still not Free

1.4 Overcoming the Challenges

However, central and state governments have, since independence, been devoting substantial funds and public effort towards provision of education and healthcare. Somehow the efforts have not yielded the desired results. The aspects of policy failure could be categorized as follows:

1. Attention to the challenges posed by the rapidly increasing population has been inadequate.

2. Delivery mechanisms are poorly designed.

3. Implementation of policies and schemes is poor.

4. Appropriate institutional mechanisms to bridge need gaps are absent.

5. Democratic institutions do not appear to be adequately answerable for the failure of the public delivery system.

Listed below are some of the points which can help the country as a whole in overcoming the challenges faced in both education and health sector

• Improvement in Infrastructure and Institutions
•  Increase in Education & Health Public Expenditure
• Free not User Fee
• Planning Around the Poorest
• Uniform Quality of Service
• Increased focus on disparities on the basis of caste, religion and gender

Data Source: World Development Indicators, 2012