Sunday Posts

  Are skills dead? It is awkward to ask just when everyone is talking about skills. In our post-GPT age, the consensus is that while ‘higher education’ may be over, we are entering the age of ‘skills’. Governments worldwide are pouring money into skills education, multinational agencies and think tanks are publishing reports on which skills are needed, and even university leaders are straying into the skills language. Yet, the same reports, employers, and experts are talking about the ‘half-life of skills’. That skills get outdated was known, but we are now talking about them getting outdated faster than it takes to master them. For example, a programming language becoming outdated in 2.5 years would mean that it would not be required by the time one gets to a level of professional maturity in programming with that language. One can...

My current work is focused on alternate credentials based on project work. The key idea here is to create credentials based on experience and create a bridge between the academic world and vocational preparation. Therefore, the current excitement about microcredentials at the university corridors is at once a source of hope and also of disappointment (see my rant about microcredentials ).  But, at the same time, I also deal with this persistent doubt about what we are doing: Are we promoting an unsustainable skills fetish which trivialises education and sacrifice individuality and freedom to think at the altar of neoliberal 'paying the bills'? Having spent most of my working life in For-profit education, I know which side of my bread is buttered. At the same time, my life as a historian of higher education, which I pursue with no less zeal or care, I feel burdened with the need to question my practice.  For a start, I know that our idea of university is a historical, rather th...

When I saw this government advert, my reaction was: Cyber what?  I did not make the immediate connection that a ballerina is being expected to become a Data Scientist overnight. I am now relieved that many other people found this ad to be distasteful and stupid. But instead of waging a cultural battle on this ad, it's worth thinking about the problem it creates. This is not just about undermining skilled professions (such as ballet) or underestimating the efforts required for a transition. The images and words of the advert can be changed (and it seems that the Government has indeed pulled the advert) but the mindset behind them would not (as the government most helpfully explained, no one in particular was responsible). So, really, not Fatima, but the people who thought up this message should rethink, rewrite and reboot. Not because they are promoting hopelessness - which they certainly are doing - but because their hopes are misplaced. They are promoting a conference circuit vers...

The big idea in private higher education is Skills. With a big S.  The argument goes that the traditional Higher Ed spends too much time disseminating Knowledge, and does not focus adequately on Skills. This is why we have an 'employability' problem today - too many graduates in non-graduate jobs with stagnating wages and no prospects of progression - and by putting skills at the heart of education, this can all be magically transformed. This argument may sound superficial and one can justifiably argue that the distinction between skills and education is an artificial one. Besides, one may also contend that the employability problem is more a labour market problem than an education problem: The structure of the economy is rapidly changing and that, rather than any educational deficiency, has caused the jammed elevator of middle-class life. And, finally, it can further be argued that at the heart of the problem is antiquated - though not unjustified - expectation a...

Over the last decade, India has set in motion one of the largest ‘skilling’ missions in the world. However, despite the grand ambition, unparalleled political and media attention and enormous expense, it is clear that the objectives, both quantitative and qualitative, have not been achieved. Though the Indian endeavour is only a few decades old, the English habit of ‘restructuring’ has already caught up – and several attempts have been made to redefine the objectives and reorganise the delivery for better outcomes. However, the founding assumptions of the ‘skilling’ mission have gone unquestioned and rethinking these assumptions, rather than operational rejigging, may provide a framework to decide what needs to be done. At the outset, it is worth noting that India’s ‘skilling’ ambition, when it was unveiled, was a top-down affair. Employers did not beseech the government to intervene; angry young workers didn’t attack Delhi demanding a better life and living. Rather, it was th...

It may seem a strange question, but this is one of the key debates in Education: Should Education be about acquiring knowledge or developing skills?  One side of the debate are people like E D Hirsch, Michael Gove and advocates of Common Core; on the other a diverse group of business executives and left-leaning educators, from those who think education should be about skills business needs to those who think what goes on as knowledge is really the dominant culture and it discriminates those from poor or minority backgrounds. Yes, I generalise, and there are many shades of argument on both sides. At the core, however, is the debate about the purpose of education along the lines of knowledge versus skills. It is important to remember in context that this is not an idle debate: The objective of both sides is to affect some sort of complete transformation of the education system. Besides, it will also be a mistake to think that both sides are starting from scratch and fightin...

The work and careers are changing. As most process-based jobs get automated, it seems the winners will be those with greater intellectual skills. In the meantime, the salary premium for college graduates have risen dramatically - mainly as a result of non-graduates falling precipitously. This is taken as evidence of centrality of college education: Everyone should be able to go to college, has become the political mantra. This is good for colleges themselves and hence, they have promoted the idea. And, as the educated usually takes upon themselves the role of society's critic-in-chief, the conclusion has not really be questioned. However, while the poor countries followed the cue and started expansion of college education - and, because the state does not have money, this means a poorer public education and enormous expansion of terribly bad private education - it is worth looking at the phenomena closely and exploring its wisdom. At one level, work has become more comple...

The conversation in India today is centred on exporting workers. The Indian government is funding Skills Development centres across the country with a mandate for training young people so that they can find jobs abroad. Partly, this is a reaction to India's job crisis - only about 150,000 net new jobs are being created in the organised sector against 25 million people entering the working age every year - but this is also based on the policy thinking that India would be 'manpower exporter' of the world in the coming years.  The wisdom of aiming to 'export' manpower is surely questionable.  First, this also reflects an inadequate understanding of the scale of the challenge in India. In India, 70,000 people turn 25 every day on average, or about 2.1 million people every month. The total number of Indians living abroad at this point of time is 15 million. Whatever capacity of skill development for overseas employment could be created by the government, i...

I have done various things in my career, from selling to teaching, from developing products and campaigns to designing courses and raising money. But, then, all of it was really around one thing - helping people develop skills and get jobs! My exposure has been various - I have spent time in the world's largest independent IT skills training company as well as a big name English training provider, a company providing technology to Europe's largest e-learning project, an Irish recruitment company embarking on global expansion and now an American start-up looking to bridge the Education-to-Employment gap - but the point of my work was always the same.  This claim may seem odd to some, as we tend to box skills training into one skill or another, and indeed cut this adrift from Higher Education (which I have also indulged in, in a private Higher Ed institution in London) - there is nothing common between a business degree programme, IT training and English language for work, ...

The conversation started with a question: What would you do if you have to re-imagine Skills Training in India? It was prompted by, no doubt, my posts in the past regarding the trajectory of skills training sector in India, which, I argued, took the eye off the ball - the demands of real workplaces - because the Government was throwing so much money into it. The correspondent, a retired Senior Executive with portfolio interests in skills training businesses, had a clear idea of both sides - he knew the changing nature of work and he knew the demand for skills education and its challenges - and he and I found ourselves in perfect agreement that government-funded skills training almost always changes priorities, from the student-centric priorities to one of pleasing bureaucrats and winning grants. This is a persistent problem in all countries - the education providers in the UK are no exception - but the absence of other safeguards, consumer rights of students, health and safety standa...

'Skills' is big on government agenda, particularly in countries like India where 69,000 people turn 25 every day. Given that only a few hundred thousand new jobs are being created in India every quarter, this means an alarming proportion of these 6 odd million people joining the ranks of the unemployed every quarter. 'Skills' is the panacea that the Government proposes, to enable a large number of people to be economically productive, either through employment or small enterprise. India is big in skills discussion, simply because of the size of the population and the problem, but many other countries are wrestling with the same set of challenges too, particularly those with expanding, and consequently young, population, and limited industry. This is an urgent social problem and the government intervention should be welcome. To this, even David Cameron's Conservatives seem to agree: Apprenticeship policy receives prime time attention in the UK and one tax that ...

I have spent more than two decades exploring the Education/Employment divide.  Starting in 1995, when I signed up to set up networks of IT training centres across small-town India, I have been chasing this idea of seamlessly transitioning students from the world of learning to the world of work (a set of terms I picked up on the way). Along the way, I have spent time doing various kinds of training and education - IT Training (1995 - 2004), e-Learning (2004 - 2007), Language Training and Recruitment (2007 - 2010), Higher Education (2010 - 2012) and finally, Competency-based Higher Ed (2012 - 2015) - in various geographies in Asia and Europe. Of all these different experiences, being on the other side of the table - in global recruitment - perhaps had the most impact on how I think about the issue of Education-to-Employment transition. In fact, my engagements in Higher Education started precisely with this agenda - I was employed by a private Higher Education institution to build ...

Finally, the penny drops. The so-touted worlds most high profile skilling mission stumbles. After a highly critical audit report, several top executives of India's National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) resigned. The audit report highlighted a number of things, most crucially various areas of management failure, and that may have triggered the change. But it also crucially pointed out that more than 99% of all funding of this public-private partnership is coming from public funds, and there is indeed no accountability in how it is being spent.  In summary, the government has finally caught up with what almost everyone else knew. That the much vaunted skills mission was a non-starter, a colossal waste of public funds which made a few dishonest businesses rich. One could justifiably claim that this was one of the pet projects of the previous government, and they must shoulder the blame of its failure. And, they should, having set the body up without any plans and ideas. ...

The Indian Prime Minister unleashed a big idea in his big speech last week, India as the HR Capital of the world! Speaking at the launch of Skill India campaign on the World Youth Skills Day on 15th July, he laid out the goal of making India the Human Resources capital of the world. This was a sound objective, something that is suitably aspirational for a statesman and rather obvious at the same time. There is a looming Global Workforce Crisis, using a term coined by Boston Consulting Group, which may notionally cost the global economy upwards of $10 trillion between 2020 and 2030 - and India has the right raw materials, young people, for a solution.  It is also India's  opportunity to lose. The country's 'Demographic Window of Opportunity', a period when at least 55% of its population is working age, opened in 2015. When population of most other countries are ageing - both United States and China would start to have more retirees than working people within the ne...

In India, Education is not supposed to develop Skills. At least, that is what various policy-makers prescribe, as they use the two terms, Skills and Education, with two very specific meanings. Accordingly, business groups and consulting organisations will have Skills Departments and Education Departments, accepting that these are two different things.  Seen from outside, this is indeed one of those idiosyncrasies that one has to put up with when dealing with India. But it is not just about some government official, perhaps goaded into it by some clever consultant, coming up with the Skills mantra as distinct from Education. It is also two other things that ail India. First, it reflects, rather than mandates, a deep division between Skills and Education that is already there in the Indian psyche. Doing anything with your hand is indeed considered inferior in India, a legacy of the Caste system which defined a hierarchy of labour. Skills, that is the ability to do something, ar...