Need for more inclusive employment, employability and education (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: Apprenticeship Act of 1961
Mains level: Issues relating to growth, employment

Context:

• The differential lockdown outcomes for skilled and unskilled workers highlight our university system’s pre-existing conditions

1. broken employability promises,
2. poor employer connectivity, and
3. poor return on private investment that frustrate parents and students.

Ways in which a skill university differs from a traditional university:

• A skill university differs from a traditional university in four ways.
• It prays to the one god of employers; for governance, faculty, curriculum, and pedagogy.
• It has four classrooms; on-campus, on-line, on-site, and on-the-job.
• It offers modularity between four qualifications; certificates, diplomas, advanced diplomas, and degrees.
• And it has four sources of financing — employers, students, CSR, and loans (though employers contribute more than 95 per cent of the costs).

Ways in which global universities are broken:

1. First is broken promises:

• The world produced more graduates in the last 35 years than the 700 years before and graduates now include 60 per cent of Korea’s taxi drivers, 31 per cent of US retail check-out clerks, and 15 per cent of India’s high-end security guards.

2. Second is broken financing:

• More than 50 per cent of $1.5 trillion in student debt was expected to default even before the COVID pandemic. Indian bank education loans have high NPAs.

3. The third is broken inclusiveness:

• The system works for privileged urban males studying full-time, but today’s students are likely to be female, poor, older, rural, or studying part-time.

4. Fourth is broken flexibility:

• Employed learners will cross traditional learners in three years, but they need on-demand, on-the-go, always-on, rolling admissions, continuous assessment, and qualification modularity.

5. Finally is broken openness:

• Google knowing everything makes learning how to learn a key 21st-century skill. Yet too many universities are stuck in knowing.
  Need regulatory changes needed for skill universities:
• Skill universities are a scalable, sustainable, and affordable vehicle to massify higher education by innovations in finance. But they need regulatory change.
• The UGC Act of 1956 needs ......................

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NAAC IQAC Regulations need rewriting:

• Criteria 1 and 1.2.2 to include work-based learning and work integrated learning, criteria 1.1.3 to include life skills and proctored/evaluated internships, and
• criteria 2 and 2.3.1 to integrate online learning with university programmes.
• Criteria 2 and 2.4.1, 3 and 6 need to be modified to recognise teachers with industry experience, and include industry-based research,
• criteria 4 and 4.1.2 to include industry workplaces and online classrooms as campus extensions, and
• criteria 5 and 5.2.1 needs to be rewritten to incorporate apprenticeships.

Need changes in the Apprenticeship Act of 1961:

• Clause 2, 8, 9, 21 and 23 of The Apprenticeship Act of 1961 also needs to be modified to allow and lift the licence raj for degree-linked apprentices and recognise skills universities.

Conclusion:

• Education reforms are an endeavour of profound optimism but have been stifled by purists, vested interests, and regulators.
• It is illogical to deny the poorna swaraj that comes with the Institutes of Eminence tag to Ashoka University and Ahmedabad University or pursue regulation-driven standardisation for our 993 universities.

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Prelims Questions:

Q1.  With reference to the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), consider the following statements:
1. The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) had been established under Article 323 - B of the Constitution.
2. The Tribunal is guided by the principles of natural justice in deciding cases and is not bound by the procedure, prescribed by the Civil Procedure Code.
3. At present there are only 15 regular benches of Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT).

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer: ...........................................................................

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Mains Questions:
Q1.  What are the factors behind a skill university......................................................?