Hari Menon, CEO, IndiaSkills, is an aluminus of BITS-Pilani. Hari started his career with ORG Systems and has worked with TVS Electronics, WiproInfotech and Integrated Data Systems. His wide exposure in these companies and subsequently in the education & training space in Manipal over the last few years has placed Hari in a unique position to guide IndiaSkills in making an impactful contribution to the skills development sector in India. Before his entry into the education sector, Hari co-founded Fabmall - a pioneer in internet and grocery retail, wherein he handled a gamut of responsibilities including strategic business planning, raising venture capital, building organizational capabilities and creating a strong IT platform for the retail business. Prior to Fabmall, Hari headed Programme Management at Planetasia.com wherein he oversaw largescale project deliveries involving a wide team of software developers, business analysts, web designers& web writers.IndiaSkills is a joint venture formed between Manipal Education, a leading higher education provider in India and City & Guilds, UK’s largest provider of work-related qualifications, assessments & certification. This partnership between two pioneers enables IndiaSkills to provide world class skills training leading to an empowered workforce with pride & proficiency in their vocation. IndiaSkills offers a wide range of qualifications across different industry verticals - while currently offering courses in Retail, Hospitality, Security, Hair & Beauty, BFSI and Spoken English, IndiaSkills will soon add technical trades in sectors like construction, manufacturing, refrigeration & air conditioning, auto service and follow it up with –qualifications in sectors like warehousing and logistics, healthcare and media & entertainment. Starting with entry level programs, IndiaSkills aims to provide multiple levels of qualifications at entry, supervisory and managerial levels, thus opening up opportunities for lifelong learning and growth. Launched in 2009, IndiaSkills currently has a presence in eight states through -50training centres that provides vocational skills education to learners.
In an exclusive interaction with Anil Mascarenhas of IIFL, Hari Menon says, “Our vision is to emerge as a leader who harnesses the power of skills to transform the future of our youth and power the economic progress of the nation.”
Give us a brief overview of vocational training in India.
Vocational training in India has traditionally been the forte of the government-run Industrial Training Institutes (ITI). These institutions were initially set up in 1950s to meet the skills demand of the manufacturing sector. There were up gradations and improvements in the later periods but it can be safely said that in the past few decades there has not been any significant changes either in curriculum, infrastructure or training delivery. This has made the whole concept of vocational training redundant in India and a majority of youth enters the workforce without any formal vocational training. The National Sample Survey’s latest estimates are awaited, but according to the 2004-05 estimates a mere 2% of Indians in the age group 15-29 has received formal training and a total of only 8% receive any kind of vocational training at all. This lack of progress and development had created a negative image and induced the common public to look down upon the whole vocational training sector.
In the recent years the government has realized the necessity of VE to leverage India’s demographic dividend and has there has been a spurt in the initiatives aimed at reviving the sector. There has also been more active participation from industry associations and individual companies in development and contribution to various fields in the VE sector.
What are the opportunities and challenges?
India’s fast economic recovery and overall development has opened up an unprecedented number of job opportunities across industry sectors. The National Skills Development Policy 2009 recognizes that skills and knowledge are critical driving forces of economic and social growth by enabling the country to more effectively respond to the opportunities and challenges of the world of work. Retail, Hospitality and BFSI are the fastest growth sectors on the service side, with about 20 million trained manpower need projected in the next 5 years by the National Skills Development Report 2009. The same report projects a demand of over 15 million skilled manpower in construction sector and 5 million in specialized sectors such as Auto and Hair & Beauty. Sectors such as Retail, Hospitality, Hair & Beauty and BFSI require very specialized trade knowledge related to the industry as well as good soft-skills such as customer relations, English language communication and personal effectiveness skill-sets. To cater to this demand, India needs professional & dedicated players like IndiaSkills who will be able to provide comprehensive skilling solutions tailor-made to industry and learner needs.
The biggest challenge that we face is the acceptability / legitimacy of vocational training certification in India – both from prospective learners as well as industry. Today, industry does not mandate certification for entry level jobs nor do they differentiate in compensation between certified & non-certified workforce. The condition of entry level recruiting in most industries is such that even trespassers are hired!!! Learners on the other hand believe that they don’t need the certification to get employment and as a result are unwilling to pay for training. Therefore the two strongest ends of VE training – the learner and the industry – do not value VE certification.
The government of India has of late, been promoting the cause of vocational training in a big way through various schemes that provide funding support to learners. While this is a positive step, another big challenge being faced by players like us is high level of dropouts. The reason being that since the training is free for the learners they do not attach any value to it resulting in large number of dropouts.
Acquiring experienced & skilled faculty to deliver the training is also a challenge, which we are tackling by sourcing experienced field professionals with practical knowledge and training them to become faculty. We have developed a unique Train-the-Trainer program and have been successfully implementing it to produce quality training faculty.
What is the business model of IndiaSkills?
Ours is an end-to-end service model spanning occupation standards development, curriculum and content development, training delivery, assessment development and delivery, certification and placement. The focus segments span corporate B2B solutions, government B2G training orders, College & Institutional employability skills solutions and end user learner skills solutions. We have a central qualification & assessment development team in Bangalore with skills delivery centres across 10 states in India.
Walk up through IndiaSkills journey; how did the partnership come about?
IndiaSkills was founded in September 2009 as a joint venture between Manipal Education, one of India’s leading players in educational sector and City & Guilds, a world leader in skills development services.
City& Guilds is a world leader in skills development with a network of 8000+ partner centres across 80 countries in the world, providing curriculum, assessment and certification services across 28 industry sectors and 600+ vocational qualifications. The expertise of City and Guilds in working with structured skilling solutions as a leading Awarding Organization in the UK is unparalleled. They have also worked with many other governments and educational bodies in countries such as EU, China, South Africa, Bahrain, Malaysia, Singapore & Hong Kong in developing effective skills systems relevant to local needs.
Manipal Education is a pioneering and leading academic, training & education services provider in India. With over 50 years of steadfast focus in the field of Education, the group provides education services across all genres. The group’s presence includes 3 universities and over 30 institutions in India, besides colleges & campuses in Antigua, Dubai, Malaysia & Nepal. Thus it was only natural that the world leader in skilling solutions combined forces with a pioneer in Indian education to promote skills development in the country.
Over a year of its operation in India, IndiaSkills has successfully developed capability in occupational role analysis, structured curriculum, content and assessment development and delivery in skills learning over nine sectors and twenty-one qualifications such as Retail, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Supply Chain, Engineering, Construction, Security and Soft Skills. A core in-house team of over twenty five industry experienced trainers, editors and designers has been built that has significantly absorbed critical processes and prior knowledge from existing qualifications within the City & Guilds system and also learned to adapt this to Indian market needs. The ability to provide product solutions in Indian languages has also been set up considering the needs of learners from different regions and educational backgrounds.
In an exclusive interaction with Anil Mascarenhas of IIFL, Hari Menon says, “Our vision is to emerge as a leader who harnesses the power of skills to transform the future of our youth and power the economic progress of the nation.”
Give us a brief overview of vocational training in India.
Vocational training in India has traditionally been the forte of the government-run Industrial Training Institutes (ITI). These institutions were initially set up in 1950s to meet the skills demand of the manufacturing sector. There were up gradations and improvements in the later periods but it can be safely said that in the past few decades there has not been any significant changes either in curriculum, infrastructure or training delivery. This has made the whole concept of vocational training redundant in India and a majority of youth enters the workforce without any formal vocational training. The National Sample Survey’s latest estimates are awaited, but according to the 2004-05 estimates a mere 2% of Indians in the age group 15-29 has received formal training and a total of only 8% receive any kind of vocational training at all. This lack of progress and development had created a negative image and induced the common public to look down upon the whole vocational training sector.
In the recent years the government has realized the necessity of VE to leverage India’s demographic dividend and has there has been a spurt in the initiatives aimed at reviving the sector. There has also been more active participation from industry associations and individual companies in development and contribution to various fields in the VE sector.
What are the opportunities and challenges?
India’s fast economic recovery and overall development has opened up an unprecedented number of job opportunities across industry sectors. The National Skills Development Policy 2009 recognizes that skills and knowledge are critical driving forces of economic and social growth by enabling the country to more effectively respond to the opportunities and challenges of the world of work. Retail, Hospitality and BFSI are the fastest growth sectors on the service side, with about 20 million trained manpower need projected in the next 5 years by the National Skills Development Report 2009. The same report projects a demand of over 15 million skilled manpower in construction sector and 5 million in specialized sectors such as Auto and Hair & Beauty. Sectors such as Retail, Hospitality, Hair & Beauty and BFSI require very specialized trade knowledge related to the industry as well as good soft-skills such as customer relations, English language communication and personal effectiveness skill-sets. To cater to this demand, India needs professional & dedicated players like IndiaSkills who will be able to provide comprehensive skilling solutions tailor-made to industry and learner needs.
The biggest challenge that we face is the acceptability / legitimacy of vocational training certification in India – both from prospective learners as well as industry. Today, industry does not mandate certification for entry level jobs nor do they differentiate in compensation between certified & non-certified workforce. The condition of entry level recruiting in most industries is such that even trespassers are hired!!! Learners on the other hand believe that they don’t need the certification to get employment and as a result are unwilling to pay for training. Therefore the two strongest ends of VE training – the learner and the industry – do not value VE certification.
The government of India has of late, been promoting the cause of vocational training in a big way through various schemes that provide funding support to learners. While this is a positive step, another big challenge being faced by players like us is high level of dropouts. The reason being that since the training is free for the learners they do not attach any value to it resulting in large number of dropouts.
Acquiring experienced & skilled faculty to deliver the training is also a challenge, which we are tackling by sourcing experienced field professionals with practical knowledge and training them to become faculty. We have developed a unique Train-the-Trainer program and have been successfully implementing it to produce quality training faculty.
What is the business model of IndiaSkills?
Ours is an end-to-end service model spanning occupation standards development, curriculum and content development, training delivery, assessment development and delivery, certification and placement. The focus segments span corporate B2B solutions, government B2G training orders, College & Institutional employability skills solutions and end user learner skills solutions. We have a central qualification & assessment development team in Bangalore with skills delivery centres across 10 states in India.
Walk up through IndiaSkills journey; how did the partnership come about?
IndiaSkills was founded in September 2009 as a joint venture between Manipal Education, one of India’s leading players in educational sector and City & Guilds, a world leader in skills development services.
City& Guilds is a world leader in skills development with a network of 8000+ partner centres across 80 countries in the world, providing curriculum, assessment and certification services across 28 industry sectors and 600+ vocational qualifications. The expertise of City and Guilds in working with structured skilling solutions as a leading Awarding Organization in the UK is unparalleled. They have also worked with many other governments and educational bodies in countries such as EU, China, South Africa, Bahrain, Malaysia, Singapore & Hong Kong in developing effective skills systems relevant to local needs.
Manipal Education is a pioneering and leading academic, training & education services provider in India. With over 50 years of steadfast focus in the field of Education, the group provides education services across all genres. The group’s presence includes 3 universities and over 30 institutions in India, besides colleges & campuses in Antigua, Dubai, Malaysia & Nepal. Thus it was only natural that the world leader in skilling solutions combined forces with a pioneer in Indian education to promote skills development in the country.
Over a year of its operation in India, IndiaSkills has successfully developed capability in occupational role analysis, structured curriculum, content and assessment development and delivery in skills learning over nine sectors and twenty-one qualifications such as Retail, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Supply Chain, Engineering, Construction, Security and Soft Skills. A core in-house team of over twenty five industry experienced trainers, editors and designers has been built that has significantly absorbed critical processes and prior knowledge from existing qualifications within the City & Guilds system and also learned to adapt this to Indian market needs. The ability to provide product solutions in Indian languages has also been set up considering the needs of learners from different regions and educational backgrounds.
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