About a quarter of the projected increase in the global population aged 15–64 years between 2010 and 2040 is expected to occur in India, making it the largest single positive contributor to the global workforce over the next three decades.This presents India with a unique window of opportunity, which if harnessed effectively, can raise the country’s economic and social equilibrium.
In line with this thought, the Indian government has launched a series of new policies and initiatives to enhance the human resource potential of the country and has set for itself an ambitious target of skilling 500 million people by the year 2022. One such strategic initiative launched by the government is the upgradation of 1,396 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) in the country through the Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode, introduced by the Ministry of Labour and Employment in 2007.
ITIs, despite being a key contributor to the skills formation activity of the nation, are observed to have low labour market success rates (owing to demand supply imbalances) and continue to remain underfunded, and underutilized, with little or no accountability or autonomy. The PPP scheme, through the greater involvement of the private sector in the management of the institutes, seeks to enable ITIs overcome these deficiencies and improve their labour market outcomes.
In order to achieve these objectives, an outlay of Rs 3,665 crores (Rs 3,490 crores for upgradation of 1,396 ITIs and Rs 175 crores for management, monitoring and evaluation of the scheme) has been set aside and close to 1,175 ITIs have already been upgraded under the scheme since 2007.
Despite this, to date, no major evaluation studies have been conducted to examine the impact of the scheme on some of the key outcome parameters – student mobilisation, retention, placement rates and infrastructure development.
This study seeks to fill this gap by generating empirical evidence on the impact of the scheme through a survey of 100 ITIs across five main geographical zones namely: East, North East, South, North and the West.
The report presents the insights generated, on the performance of the scheme among the 14 ITIs surveyed in the East and Northeast region.