Can hands-on learning, spending time to see the context beat all the classroom training?

Context:

Competencies gap to ‘employable skills’ in graduates, younger workforce in India, and education system in general have been much tabled, scrutinised subjects in the recent times. One of the statistics is that less than 15% of the graduates have ‘employable’ skills. This number is further skewed between urban, rural sections, across industries, services sectors.

These optics steers the attention to the education method. The society in general tends to be more attuned towards test scores, cut-off marks to get admissions to colleges. We tend to gloss over whether the students have the skills, aptitude to make their mark in corporate world, MSME, an entrepreneur setup, in academia or any other sector.

The education setup in general is more attuned towards class-room learning, and in recent times classroom + remote learning + digital enhancers. Are these the optimal approach to make students gather knowledge? On the other hand, hands-on learning, expending some time in seeing the context of the situation with one’s eyes beats all the classroom, digital training and preparedness. Is hands-on learning or a blend of classroom + hands-on learning more optimal way to make students ‘learn’, and improve 'employability'?

This document tables the challenges faced, the root causes, potential solution(s), and the path ahead.

What are the challenges on hand?

A country like India has huge untapped potential, with its staggering scale, multiple levels of diversity of caste, local languages, religion. Few numbers tell the story:

• 1.44B+ populace.
• 925+M citizens in the working age group.
• Median age of 28.2 years (making India one of the youngest nations in the world).
• 10M+ graduates including 1.5M+ engineers graduating every year.
• 1110+ universities. 44K+ colleges. 11K+ standalone institutions. 1.5+M schools. ~15K+ ITIs.

India has all the components to position as ‘Skills Capital’ of the world. The challenge is there are youths with degrees, but not with relevant employable skills.

• Between 10% to 15% of the graduates have ‘employable’ skills.
• One in 4 MBAs, one in 5 engineers, and one in 10 graduates have ‘employable’ skills.
• Only less than 50% of the seats at ITI (Industrial Training Institutes) are filled every year, with further lower rates of placement.

There are youths with qualifications but not relevant skills-set. Industry, corporates hires for the ‘employability’ skills, which tend to be missing amongst the larger group of students. It is not all doomsday. The transformative changes in the education landscape brought about in the past decade has created a multitude of opportunities for students. Nonetheless the efforts, execution, outcomes are falling short of what the industry expects.

Let us take a look at what are these ‘employable’ skills?

I would categorise the ‘employable’ skills into three components:

First leg are the skills in relevant craft - Technology, Engineering, Medical, Nursing, Aviation, Usage of machinery, tools, drone operations? ….

Second leg are the Digital skills, Domain skills, understanding of the Business Operations.

Third leg is crucial, and appears to have the larger gap are the ‘Soft’ skills. These include Critical thinking, Problem solving, Communication, Adaptability, Empathy, Resilience.

A blend of these components will need to utilised, will evolve as the market, industry, technology landscape rapidly changes with time. This requires the learning, working methodologies to refine, evolve with time.

What are the root causes for these skills gap?

There root causes for the ‘employable’ skills gap can be segmented across below themes:

a. Lower investment than desired in training of the faculty, teachers: Low investment in the infrastructure, facilities, and training of faculty. Not able to engage industry experts as visiting faculty to share the knowledge with the students.

b. Difficulty in attracting right quality of faculty with competitive compensation: Not having adequate compensation for teachers, and lack of investment in training results in difficulty to attract the right quality of faculty with attractive compensation.

c. Higher focus on theoretical learning with emphasis on rote learning: Theoretical, classroom based education mode in a textbook + lecture format, and emphasis on rote learning results in widening the skills gap required for students to succeed in today’s world.

d. Vocational education tends to be stigmatised in India: Vocational skills, including in institutes like ITIs are considered lower in the education hierarchy, get lower acceptance of parents, and lower students’ enrolment. There have been attempts in the past to refine the ITI ecosystem, across government and private ITIs.

e. Lag between the curriculum in terms of skills vs what the industry desires: The education system does not include practical, hands-on learning at an early age. There is a need to constantly upgrade education curriculum, methods of learning. NEP 2020 focuses on covering the pitfalls of the educational system, removing the concept of rote learning.

f. Challenges of access, equity, inadequate infrastructure in higher education: The divide between urban and rural education hinders equitable access to quality education, resulting in further skills gap divide.

g. Gap in the connect between industry and academia: While collaboration, dialogues between academia, and industries exists, it needs further strengthening, streamlining across industries, services sectors.

Mitigation Actions, and Path Ahead:

1. At policy level, NEP 2020 has recommended that ‘Vocational education will be integrated into all school, higher education institutions in a phased manner over the next decade’. The thrust of the policy is largely on vocational, skills education to improve ‘employability’ with a flexible, multidisciplinary, competency-based curriculum.?

2. Hands-on, experiential learning provides students the freedom, responsibility to learn through real experience, as opposed to lecture delivery format. Incorporate learning for higher education, where students can experience real-world projects in collaboration with industry partners.

3. Accelerate the investment in vocational education through ITIs, polytechnics, and similar institutions. This will require investment in infrastructure, curriculum refinement, attracting right level of faculty with attractive compensation.

4. Continue to invest in modernising training content, infrastructure in higher education, vocational training institutes with right level of state, corporate sponsorship.

5. Strengthen industry collaboration to ensure that the skills, curriculum are aligned with current, and future industry needs. Integrate Apprenticeships through partnering with varied industries, and make this an integral part of the curriculum.

6. Leverage academia alumni network to offer mentorship to guide students to navigate through the learning opportunities effectively.

India is moving towards faster economic growth, the relatively younger workforce needs to be re-skilled. By adopting experiential learning, students, younger workforce can be trained, and better equipped for ‘employability’, and meeting the demands of the job market.

Learning through hands-on method has a number of advantages over ‘traditional’ method. Given the scale of the younger workforce, and education setup, it may seem impossible to break away from the lecture delivery mode. The optimal way forward could be a hybrid approach of hands-on + classroom learning for all higher education, and possibly earlier in the education cycle. This approach plus investment in faculty training, industry + academia collaboration will go a long way to improve learnability, and employability.

References: LinkedIn, Artwork by Anita D'Souza