Ganesh's Unwavering Will

- by Malav Shah

Ganesh Gurmare is 20 years old and hails from a small village in the district of Gadchiroli. His father is a farmer who places tremendous importance on Ganesh's academics. Ganesh is a very bright student and always did well in academics. Despite this, his father was far from satisfied. He always said to Ganesh, "Become successful, then we'll see." Ganesh confessed that he studied hard just to see his father happy. By the time he reached college, his interest in academics had become negligible. Even though he attended no classes during his first year of B.A, he still managed to pass his exams.

Ganesh's family lives in moderate conditions, but his father is the sole earner which puts a lot of pressure on him. Ganesh wanted to do something substantial to support his family. This was when his friends, who were attending the PACE hospitality program in Aurangabad, told him about the same. When Ganesh told his parents that he wanted to drop out of his studies and join the hospitality program his parents blatantly refused. But, Ganesh was not one to give up so easily. He was determined and tried every trick in the book to change his parents' minds. Eventually, he even went on a hunger strike for 2 days before his parents gave in to his will. So, with 4 friends from his village he set out for Satara.

India 2022: High on Skills but Low on Jobs?

- by Janie Lee

In an article posted by Forbes India on July 10 2013, Dinesh Narayanan looks at the vocational skilling landscape in India. The article touches on a few of the issues that pose fundamental challenges to achieving the ambitious goal of training 500 million youth by 2022. Among these concerns are on-the-job training, certification, and a lack of meaningful interaction between stakeholders. Ultimately, Narayanan drives home the point that policy must be “democratically made and autocratically implemented.”

While both the private and public sectors are grappling with the right strategy to implement on an autocratic level, individual organizations are finding degrees of success in placing students and recovering fees. By sharing best practices and innovative models, all stakeholders can have more input in determining which strategies could and should be scaled up. Only then can policy be made democratically.

On a smaller scale, Pratham has had varying levels of success attempting to create training and placements for youth in India. The methods below highlight the successful practices that address some of the concerns that Narayanan has mentioned in his article. We hope to continue an honest conversation about what is and is not working within the vocational skilling landscape in India and invite others to do the same.

Strategic Partnerships

Former labor minister Mallikarjun Kharge stressed the need for active involvement between the public and private sectors in order to sure proper and high-quality implementation of programs. Within each of Pratham’s industry-specific programs, we have partnered with industry leaders and the National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC). The partners serve as knowledge partners and support organizations for students from beginning to end. Partners such as L&T gives us financial support, whereas others like Taj provide industry exposure through on the job training for one week.  As knowledge partners, organizations provide oversight during the setup phase of each center, help develop course content, share assessment tools, provide joint certification, provide placement linkages, and help audit the center to ensure high-quality delivery of training.