Activities
ADDRESS BY NAYAN PATEL, PRESIDENT OF INDIAN MERCHANTS' CHAMBERS AT THE LAUNCH OF THE CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS OF THE INDIAN MERCHANTS’ CHAMBER AT NCPA, NARIMAN POINT MUMBAI
18-07-2006 : Mumbai
“Education: Empowering the Youth”
Ladies and Gentlemen, please join me in welcoming H. E. the President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Hon’ble Shri S M Krishna, Governor of Maharashtra, Chief Minister of our State, Shri Vilasraoji Deshmukh and our Dy. Chief Minister, Shri R R Patil to the inauguration of the centenary celebrations of the Indian Merchants’ Chamber.
A very warm welcome to you all as well.
We are deeply privileged to have in our midst His Excellency the President of India, whose innovative ideas and thoughts are a beacon for the IMC and have inspired its deliberations and activities.
Indeed, the theme “Education: Empowering the Youth” , selected for the centenary celebrations, beginning from today, has been inspired by the writings and speeches of our Hon’ble President, Dr Abdul Kalam.
“Educational system in India should give the Indian youth the freedom to achieve and in doing so should guide them accordingly. It should bring in an attitudinal change that will shake students out of a mindset of limited achievement. It should create leaders leading us to prosperity. It should nurture creativity. To guide and not to impose views is what the educational system needs to do. It should free
Trapped energies and suppressed initiatives and harness them properly. The education system must also underline that “Thinking is capital, Enterprise is the way, Hard Work is the solution”. Most importantly, the educational system should give the youth the courage to transform his or her dreams into reality” – Dr A.P.J. Kalam
There is no denying that there are a number of critical issues confronting the educational system in India.
The portfolio of Education has been devalued both at the Centre and in the States. As a result, literacy in the country has been limping at around 65%.
There is shortage of trained manpower. The current educational system is woefully inadequate to train our youth to become qualified human resources. This shortage is likely to worsen as systemic initiatives to address such a serious issue are absent.
There is lack of synchronization between what the industry requires and the kind of education that is offered by the system.
A Few Key Statistics can illustrate the major ills that are prevailing in our present system.
- Drop-out rate in schools from KG to 10+2 ranges from 90 to 94%
- China has about 1.80mn schools as compared to India’s only 0.95mn schools.
- About 7 to 8% of the youth who finish the 10+2 stage enter the 17,600 colleges of India. Most of the so called graduates are not-employable.
- China has about 900 Universities, Japan 4,000 while India has only 372 Universities.
- The coaching business is getting bigger than the education business.
- While 75 to 85% of the youth in developed and developing countries learn a skill or competence or trade between the ages of 14 to 35 through vocational education and training, in India the vocational training hardly covers 3 to 5% of the population.
- India has about 5,000 ITIs (Ministry of Labour) and 7,000 vocational schools (Ministry of HRD) as compared to China’s about 5,00,000 senior secondary vocational schools.
- India has 300 mn able bodied people between the ages of 18 to 50 but are bereft of skill sets and are, therefore, not employable.
The above mentioned scenario has unfortunately emerged at a time when India is on the threshold of carving a highly prominent niche for itself in the global arena.
Presently, India is the fourth largest economy in the world in terms of purchasing power, next to USA, China and Japan. By 2010, India will emerge as the third largest economy overtaking Japan.
With the 21st century economy being largely knowledge driven, India has the potential to carve a prominent niche for herself in knowledge and service industries.
Second Vision for India
Considering the critical issues in the arena of education, in the centenary year, IMC has decided to effectively renew the involvement of its members in community building. This is most apt for an organization that was born during the beginning of the 20th century, when the country was struggling to wrest economic Swaraj from the hands of the British rulers.
Our Hon’ ble President of India, Dr Kalam, has labeled the freedom movement as the first vision for the nation . His second vision is that of a developed India. The transformation towards the second vision is possible only through ignited minds coupled with hard work and creatively addressing the problems of education.
IMC & Second Vision
To reiterate, human resource has emerged as one of the most serious constraint to the economic growth of our country. A solution to this problem is imperative as one quarter of the world’s youth live in India.
The challenge before our educational system is, therefore, to prepare the youth to make the most of the emerging economic opportunities.
Spread of quality education is the need of the hour as this will only guarantee employment both to the rural as well as urban poor.
IMC is of the view that there is a persistentsystemic inadequacy in our educational system that has weakened our capacity to pro-actively respond to the important universal trends.
The system needs reform, for at present it leaves youth (urban and rural) directionless, with lack of employment skills and vocational education.
The series of famous BRIC reports, Mr Narayanamurthy (Infosys) and our Finance Minister Mr Chidambaram’s recent speeches, all have vividly brought out the accelerating trend of acute shortage of skilled work force— a problem if not attended to, may derail India’s excellent track record of growth.
The need, therefore, is to make vocational education a first line choice, not the “no other alternative” that it has been for so many.
Hence, in this centenary year, we dedicate the Chamber towards supporting the activities of Training and Education and participating through this in nation building, yet again, as we have done since inception.
IMC’s commitment to training springs from the fast changes that are taking place in the modern workplace.
- Reorganization has left firms leaner and more efficient, with more responsible jobs further down the line of management.
- Business firms will always under invest in training for generic skills as the person receiving the training could move elsewhere.
- Career transitions are becoming more frequent and young workers need to manage the uncertainty and change that is becoming all pervasive. This poses the most significant challenge to those that are entering the workforce -the management of their relationship with work and learning.
- The need is to evolve self-reliant work force/managers, as such self-reliant people will only be in a position to transform and adapt their skills to new dynamic situations.
The employability of a person is dependent on the match between his skills and the requirements of the employer. There is a vacuum in the middle with regard to such skills that are specific to an industry or occupation.
Business and industry should, therefore, be more involved in the planning and design of training courses. This way, the need and availability of skills will match as the model will have a business-needs centered approach rather than a placement centered approach.
IMC will play a role of a facilitator in as much that it will bring together the Industry, Academicians, Training Institutes and Financial Intermediaries.
- The IMC along with Industry, Academicians and the Training Institutes will decide on the curriculum, methodology for training and duration of the training period.
- IMC would carry out the set system’s constant monitoring and periodic revision anticipating the global market needs.
- The trainee spends a certain number of weeks per year at the training institution, which provides both general and technical training.
- Industry will provide specialized faculty to ensure exposure to current business practices.
- International experts in addition to domestic experts on Vocational Training will be proactively associated with IMC programme, a process that will get facilitated by the tie-ups with prestigious technical institutes abroad such as L’Ecole Polytechnique de Paris or Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich. This will enable benchmarking to international standards in terms of quality and productivity and ensure a labour force that is responsive to emerging market needs of a global economy.
- The trainee works in the firm during some part of his training.
- Teachers and employers meet regularly to exchange information about the course requirements and the progress of the student.
- We have identified firms and vocational training institutions where the learning venues will have to be located and in conjunction with them will set the skills requirements, curriculum and training standards.
- This will be done in areas as diverse as maintenance of real estate, travel and tourism, specialised programme in visual merchandising, retail management, services management, construction management /civil works etc.
- At the end, the Chamber, jointly with the partner corporate, will evaluate and accredit successful students. This certification raises the benchmark of the candidate and empowers him in his vocation to earn not just as an employee but thanks to the hands on industrial training, guides him to a vision of being a successful entrepreneur.
- IMC will facilitate financing in the form of seed capital through Banks and Financial I n s t i t u t i o n s . Ai m i s t o e n co u r a g e professionalism and entrepreneurship in the country in the global context.
- Effort will be to make IMC a role model to be emulated by other Chambers, organizations or even to be recommended by the Knowledge Commission.
Above implies that there will be total industry involvement leading to enhanced employability in the country and IMC model comprises Mentoring, Advisory and Networking facilitation.
Collectively facilitating training by the Industry is only possible through a Chamber of Commerce & Industry and it is this role that IMC is now going to engage in to further the cause of nation building.
But our commitment does not end here
On completion of successful training, IMC will offer mentorship and advisory services to those who have the entrepreneurial aptitudes and facilitate the setting up of business by providing assistance in the development of a business plan, entrepreneurial training courses and tying up with Financial Intermediaries, so as to enable evaluation of creditworthiness and the provision of finance.
It is well known that entrepreneurial start-ups and small firms are usually financially constrained. With IMC’s initiative, lending by financial intermediaries towards small business would tend to tilt away from asset and transactions based lending, based on financial statements, towards relationship and confidence lending.
Our thinking is in consonance with the President of India’s thinking as he has also called for the banking system to provide capital for new ventures by setting aside their “conventional tangible asset syndrome” .
This way we will be fulfilling the social vision that he has so often talked about.
Skills and Lifetime Learning
Self-reliance skills are only one among four types of skills that a person contemplating a working life needs. An education is complete in today’s environment if the person is a team player, which requires special skills, negotiation skills and networking skills. Also, a person needs to be a generalist with general business skills and having knowledge in areas such as finance and IT etc. These three types of skills – self-reliance skills, team skills, generalist skills – reinforce the fourth skill which a person needs in order to be matched to a job which is specialist/vocational skills associated with expertise in the field of work that the person has chosen to pursue.
The important change, today, is that education is not a ‘front end’ activity for youth to prepare for adulthood but it is a part of a lifelong process of personal and social growth that adapts to and itself shapes the changing culture of the work place.
The educational system must acknowledge the need for future ‘adaptability’ and, therefore, establish a high level of general education as the necessary base for subsequent training and re¬training as technological progress occurs.
The economic situation, today, is such that on the one hand, there is an exponentially increasing demand for specific skills but on the other hand, availability of such a work force is lagging far behind the requirement.
As training gets more related to actual job requirements in the labour market, it becomes more specific and the skills tend to become less transferable. Such is the case of functional skills that are unique to a firm. Training for such job-specific skills raises productivity mainly in the firm and it is appropriate that the firm provides for it.
Here, there is a role for a Chamber of Commerce like IMC, wherein the academic programme is made to more closely mirror the needs of potential employers. With business more involved in the planning and design of courses, industry will most likely subsequently also avail of the services of people undergoing such training.
The engagement of business makes the curriculum relevantand IMC along with training institutes and industry would form an effective accreditation mechanism, the need for which in education has been highlighted by our revered President Dr Kalam as well. When a training institution is able to determine the needs of target markets, it is better able to satisfy them through the design, communication and delivery of appropriate and competitively viable training programmes.
Initial Steps Already Taken
IMC has the credentials to transform the social vision into reality because of its rich experience and reach.
Our Education Committee in collaboration with DNA News Media undertook a project to set up a “Summer Jobs Program for Youth in Mumbai” in April-May this year. Targeting students who have completed the XIIth standard as well as first and second year undergraduate students, the program aimed to help students build an awareness of the work place and gain work experience. Over 500 industrial units showed an interest in taking interns who were also given a stipend. Over 25,000 students were given work exposure in industrial and business undertakings this summer.
At the same time, we need to recognize that education cannot just be knowledge centered but must involve a person-centered approach to teaching and learning as well. The curriculum should also promote the spiritual, moral and cultural development of students and prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life. The Hon’ble President himself has very rightly referred to this as a pre-requisite for “elevating young minds” .
“To encourage the young to use their own freedom, actively and positively, is after all the notion of empowerment.”
There is no doubt that the Youth of today has also to be equipped with three kinds of skills- Capacity for Research and Inquiry, Capacity for Creativity and Innovation and Capacity for Entrepreneurial Leadership.
For this, we need to strengthen knowledge base of India and set up new institutions and upgrade existing institutions; convert knowledge into human capabilities; bridge funding gap/attract global investment and improve governance of educational system.
Our action plan has, therefore, to revolve around:
Increased Access, Knowledge creation by way of research and innovation and most importantly, knowledge application.
We have taken a cue from the Hon’ble President’s vast experience and learning. The President has stated and I quote, “When the students come out of the educational institutions, certain capacities are required to be built in them to deal with the real world…. the ingredients for capacity building must be embedded right from the beginning of the students’ life from primary education to higher education” .
IMC has adopted this goal and we stand committed.
We are envisaging that the goal for vocational training under the auspices of Chambers of Commerce like the IMC should prove to be a role model for others to emulate, thereby becoming a national agenda for heralding the second vision for India.
Our endeavor is to make the President’s Second Vision for India a reality and in tune with what our national poet Rabindranath Tagore said “where the mind is without fear and the head is held high …(and) where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought action – into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake” .
We, at IMC, are eager and emphatic that our President’s second vision gets realized for adynamic tomorrow for India.
Thank You
Acknowledgement
I take this opportunity to thank Prof. Errol D’Souza of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, who along with Mr Suresh Kotak and Mr Tanil Kilachand, IMC’s past Presidents, Ms. Kiran Nanda, Advisor IMC & Director IMC ERTF & Dr Ashok Ganguly from the Knowledge Commission, has helped us in crystallizing our thinking on this issue