The current allocations in the educational sector, however, would hardly fulfill basic requirement even for a year, as following the Prime Minister’s thrust for skills development at the grassroots levels and measures for them are expected to be incorporated within this fiscal itself. Though it is not clear whether or not Mr Jaitley is hoping to add to this allocation the existing corpus of Rs. 5,000 crore for skills development available at the disposal of such ministries as Rural Development, Labour, MHRD, and the states.

Also, it is not clarified whether or not the allocation of Rs 28,635 crore for Sarva Shikhsya Aviyan (SSA), Rs 4,966 crore for Rashtriya Madhyamic Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Rs 500 crore provided for Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya New Teachers Training Programme would eventually entail the skills education strategies. Prime Minister, however, lauded the allocations as ‘an impetus to Jan Bhagidari, and Jan Shakti.’

India urgently needs to take education and skills training to the doorsteps of the rural and remote area people. The country also needs to develop a vision on how to integrate education schemes with skills training, so that the youths are temperamentally drawn to the nation-building processes.

This is a primary necessity for the rural-based and forest-nearing tribes who are the grassroots citizens of the country. This would correct many of India’s current socio-economic conflict scenarios.

This would also create a development mindset perpetually inculcating quality national spirit. Indeed, it is a more difficult a task for a government in saddle, much more than just offering doles for budgetary sops for PPP models or infrastructure developments.

The requirements are fundamental. The first is the number of basic educational institutes in rural areas must be increased every year to take education to the doors of the people, so that drop-outs do not occur. The second is the primary education has to be integrated with job-oriented skills training programmes within the primary schools, so that the children are assured of earning bread soon after clearing their basic schooling and entering their advanced skills education and training.

The third is sense of Quality orientation needs to be used in the skills training from the basic stages. The fourth necessity is that the advanced centres for skills training must be close to their villages, maybe at the Panchayat Raj Institution centres.

The fifth requirement is to compulsorily induct girl children from all families into education-cum-skills training institutes. If necessary, give financial supports to the families of the girl children for sending into the education-cum-skills training centres, and use stringent policing to actually make this happen. Any social body, like that issues fatwas under Shariat laws etc, which dictate against girls’ education and skills training, must be abrogated through new national legislation, and, if necessary, be punished.

The advanced world, which propels the national governments into development action, are all groomed systematically through application of such international skills education (not-for-profit) societies as American Society for Quality (ASQ), Project Management Professionals (PMP), Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI).

Such specialist organisations of veteran skills scholars are active in all developed countries across the world. These societies have Indian specialists who guide Indian MNCs within the country and function as the basic institutes for their new recruits.
If we are starting more and more PPP models for development, we should be able to appreciate the result-oriented skills education models of the advanced worlds, which also include China, Singapore and Thailand in our neighbourhood.

Professional grooming from the incubation period to maturity alone would bring Indian youths into world-class quality manufacturing, service, education, healthcare and governance.

If the mission is carried out with social commitment as is proposed by the SPMRS, it would eventually correct the drop-out rates at basic schools. At the same time the Quality sense would emerge among the weakest section of the country’s population, enough to feed the needs of the factories in metropolitan, urban and semi-urban areas. Have we forgotten Mahatma Gandhi who said that strong villages make strong India?

The integrated education and skills training would also strengthen the vision of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), which the NDA government has decided to upkeep.

Allocation for Education and Skills Development could also be for setting up ITIs in rurban areas. At least an announcement for these could have been made in the Budget along with those for the new AIIMS, IITs, IIMs, which were actually UPA-II government’s avowed programmes.

Mr Jaitley perhaps could have pipped the UPA-II government by spelling more clearly about programmes like setting up of ITIs at PRI regions and skills training institutes at each gram Panchayat. (IPA Service)