Learn By Doing’ And ‘Earn While Learning’ Will Be The Future Of India

Technology is not just game-changing, it is life-changing. This saying in today’s scenario fits perfectly with evolving job scenario, increasing demand for specific skills and futuristic employment outlook of the employers. This transition has made training systems like vocational training and apprenticeship very relevant as they are designed to address the industry demands thereby surfacing the former positioning of being meant for lower social classes.  

In today’s era, one needs to choose the right kind of academic training clubbed with specialized training to become more competitive and employable. Higher education has always been and continues to be an important agenda for the majority of aspirants. However, lack of actual skill training within the curriculum is making our countries precious talent pool more redundant. This becomes a problem as candidates lack basic employability skills and today employers are significantly focusing on core competencies and not just bookish knowledge and this harsh reality is faced by 8 million graduates who join the workforce every year.

In our fast-paced world, the traditional definition of education cannot be applied to the present landscape which is dynamically changing every year. The market demands improvement and restructuring in terms of job roles and skill requirements. A strong holistic curriculum is a key to familiarizing youth with new age concepts and roles. The effectiveness of education must be measured against employment opportunities and not mere degrees. While the government and many private players have been aligning their efforts towards skilling the youth, there is still a long way to go. There is a need to overhaul what is being taught and the way it is being taught to prepare a million candidates who enter the workforce every month.  And for those in existing job roles, the focus has to be on continuous up-skilling in order to remain employable. This makes education not only the biggest opportunity that our country needs to latch on too for its own socio-economic growth but also a gap that needs to be addressed as fast as possible.  

In order to build a robust future workforce, combine the four types of a classroom (traditional, online, vocational and apprenticeship) is crucial as it helps mold candidates into a complete enhanced resource. While the vocational training prepares the candidate for a specific trade, the Apprenticeship program is another holistic approach that helps students gets a more personalized experience and 1-1 training during their on-the-job tenure. Such training modules help improves the overall compensation and salary scale and makes aspirants more employable. There are successful case studies around us that clearly outline that a combination of traditional education, industry exposure and practical application of theory on the job is paving way for making candidates more employable. Now it is time for the majority to learn and adapt the best practices.

Our country is moving towards its growth path and this is not possible without competitive skilled labors. We can’t deny the fact that emerging new-age technologies are making most of the old-school roles redundant and therefore the demand for advanced skill sets has been increasing consistently. In such a scenario, the only way to address the increasing quality demand and supply gap is to opt for defined skill training. This will enable candidates to avail better job roles with improved salaries, rather than just going for expensive higher education programs with a limited guarantee of jobs at the end. 

‘Learning by doing’ and ‘earning while learning’ will become the most important pillar of the future of career development. Relevant learning platforms like vocational training and apprenticeships should no longer take a backbeat but should be equally evaluated while making a career choice. They are practical classrooms which make the student job ready and enrich their path to a stable employment opportunity across multiple industries and sectors both. Candidates must weigh their qualification and skill knowledge more wisely, because at the end what matters in job markets are skills and capabilities, and not just ranks and classroom knowledge. Benjamin Franklin once said, “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn.” This is what defines Vocational training. 

Sumit Kumar

Guest Author Sumit Kumar is currently overseeing the operations of NETAP is a Public Private Partnership of Teamlease Skills University, CII and NSDC under the National Employability Enhancement Mission (NEEM) of the Ministry of HRD (AICTE). Prior to TeamLease he was associated with Monster India as their regional manager.