GROWTH OF TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
The importance of technical education in India was recognised as early as 1882 by the Hunter's Commission. Since then various Commissions and Committees appointed by the respective governments have made recommendation for the expansion and improvement of technical education in the country. Technical education has, however, expanded many folds since Independence. The first section of this chapter reviews briefly the recommendations of some of the important Commissions and Committees. It ends with a brief description of the status of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in vocational education.
The Directorate General of Employment & Training(DGE&T) has been collecting data regularly relating to the intake capacity and enrolment in the Industrial Training Institutions covered by it. The second section analyses the current status of facilities in these institutions and brings out the inter-state differences in respect of provision and utilization of facilities by the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and nonscheduled groups over time. The comparative performance of these groups has been analysed at the state level so far as the data permitted.
Section I
Recommendations of the Commissions and Committees since Independence
As far back as 1882, Hunter's Commission stressed the need of diversified courses at school stage. When the Secondary Education Commission met in 1952 there were, however, very few technical institutes and polytechnics in the country. The Secondary Education Commission, therefore, recommended the establishment of large number of technical school "either separately or as part of the secondary schools. Further, such schools should be established in large cities which may cater to several local schools and wherever possible should be located
24 Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Industrial Training Institutes
in close proximity to appropriate industries and they should function in close collaboration with the industries(Ministry of Education 1953).
As a result of the recommendations of this Commission, the number of technical schools expanded both as part of secondary schools as well as separate vocational and industrial training institutes. Thus, at the beginning of the Third Five Year Plan in 1961, there were 196 Polytechnics and 167 ITIs in the country with a total seating capacity of 25,571 and 42,136 students respectively (Planning Commission 1961,615).
When the Education Commission (1964-66) reviewed the situation with regard to the adequacy of technical and vocational education at the school stage it was found that these were far short of the requirements of the country for middle level technical manpower. The Commission, therefore, recommended that by 1986, some 20 per cent of all enrolments at the lower secondary level and some 50 per cent beyond Xth class should be in part time or full time vocational and professional courses. The Commission recommended that such courses should be predominantly terminal in character although there should always be opportunities for the gifted child through further study, to rejoin the main stream and move higher.
Reviewing the situation about the training of semi-skilled and skilled workers, the same Commission observed that semi-skilled and skilled workers are now trained principally in the ITIs of which some 356 exist with a total capacity of 1,13,000 persons. The second level of skill which education system provides is the middle level supervisory and technician group. Technicians are mainly trained in three year diploma courses in the polytechnics. Which numbered 274 in 1965-66. The Commission recommended that further expansion of facilities in the ITIs should be explored, and, if possible, the available' places should be more than doubled in the Fourth Plan. The Commission,however stressed the responsibility of technical and vocational education for training not only those who will seek employment but also for those who will create employment(NCERT,1970). As a result of the recommendations of various Commissions and felt need of the industries, technical and vocational education expanded considerably. The first ever comprehensive survey of technical and vocational education undertaken by the Institute of Applied Manpower Research tells us that in 1973 there were 18 types of institutions imparting vocational and technical training at school level(Institute of Applied Manpower Research. 1976). The total sanctioned intake of these institutions at that time was 4,11,065 persons while enrolment in same year was 5,04,442 persons(Appendix Table 3.1)
Growth of Technical and Vocational Education 25
The Working Group on Technical and Vocational Education was of the view that the facilities available for training of various levels of skills were adequate(Ministry of Education and Social Welfare 1978,15). In fact, it point out that whereas the ratio between graduates, technician and craftsmen was 1:3:5 in some developed countries, in India the ratio between graduate & technician was 1: 2 but the output ratio dropped to 1: 1. The short fall, it pointed out, was due to various reasons, important among them being students with different background, inadequate utilization of existing facilities, lack of operating departmental costs, and lack of motivation of staff and the students. The Group, therefore, emphasised consolidation, diversification and improvement of quality rather then further expansion.
On the basis of the Report of the Working Group, the All India Council of Technical Education made a number of recommendations for a period of ten years, covering graduate, technician and craftsmen training. Some of the important recommendations related to Polytech- nics and Industrial Training Institutions are:
1. Within the approved annual intake capacity each institution should increase the supply of technical manpower by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of education process. Shifts in the intake capacities between disciplines may be effected to cater to the emerging manpower needs.
2. All new courses should be based on well established and well defined manpower needs.
3. Credit system with provision for multi-point entry in part-time and full-time programmes should be introduced.
4. Industrial and rural development problems be identified and a greater emphasis on research programmes to tackle such problems be given in keeping with the national needs. Technical education institutions having the potential and capability to undertake problem-oriented and application- oriented programmes be selected and properly supported to facilitate substantial contribution to rural and community development.
5. In order to reduce drop outs and other forms of wastage, it is necessary that special efforts in the form of remedial courses be carried out in the initial stages to help weaker students.
6. The tasks of planning and organising technical education from the level of craftsmen to that of technologists be brought under a single national agency both at the Centre and States to ensure
26 Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Industrial Training Institutes
balanced development through an integrated approach (Ministry of Education & Social Welfare; 1978,129-132).
The Sixth Five Year Plan 1980-85 took note of the existing of facilities that has been created for technical education at various levels as well as support services like teacher education and curricular developments and plan emphasised:
(i) on consolidation and optimum utilisation of facilities;
(ii) identification of critical areas and creation of facilities in the emerging technologies keeping view the future manpower requirements;
(iii) improvement of quality of technical education at all levels; and,
(iv) furtherance of national effort to develop and apply science and technology as an instrument of the country's socioeconomic progress (Planning Commission, 1981).
Recognising that the bulk of the unemployed in the country are matriculates and the limited possibilities of employment in the organised sector, the Plan emphasised that training in the ITIs which is mostly oriented to service sector shall be revamped to make it self-employment and production oriented. The areas having potential for self employment will be identified and orientation courses will be organised. Linkages will be maintained between the trainees and the training institutions until they become self reliant.
Situation of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in
Vocational Education It has already been observed that vocational and technical education has special importance for the scheduled castes and tribes not only because they can profit more from this training in terms of raising their productivity but also it is comparatively within easy reach of these groups both because of its shorter duration and lower eligibility requirement and availability of variety of monetary incentives..
Considering the importance of this type of education, seats have been reserved for the scheduled categories in the ITIs, Polytechnics and Engineering Colleges. Consequently, there has been considerable growth in enrolment of the children of the scheduled groups in vocational courses at all levels, specially at the school level courses. Thus, while
Growth of Technical and Vocational Education 27
in 1964-65 the proportion of the scheduled castes and the scheduled tribes students in all the vocational courses at the school stage was 7.8 and 2.2 per cent, in 1976-77 their proportions increased to 9.8 per cent and 3.8 per cent respectively. This was still far below their proportion in the population of the country. The enrolment rates of the scheduled groups in vocational education were not very different than in general education. Thus, while in professional education their ratios were 9.8 per cent and 3.8 per cent respectively for the scheduled castes and the scheduled tribes, in the general education these were 9.3 per cent and 2.2 per cent. There were large statewise differences in the enrolment ratios of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. In Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh the enrolment ratios of the scheduled castes in 1976-77 were higher in general education in comparison to vocational education. Similarly, the enrolment ratio for the scheduled tribes in general education in 1976-77 was higher than that in vocational education in Madhya Pradesh, Manipur and Rajasthan (Appendix Table 3.2).
The above may be interpreted to mean that either the facilities for vocational education are not available or the incentives given in these institutions are not sufficiently attractive to the scheduled groups. It is also possible that the scheduled groups want to break away, as far as possible, from their traditional occupations and take up white collar jobs for which vocational education does not equip them. It is considered necessary to find out if the facilities are inadequate or incentives unattractive in these institutions or are there some extraneous factors which keep the proportion of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes low in this training?
As indicated earlier, the present work, is limited to a study of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in the Industrial Training Institutions only.
Section II
Facilities in the ITIs and their Utilization by the Deprived Groups In the ITIs training is imparted in 32 engineering and 22 non- engineering trades to the young people in the 15-25 age group. The training period ranges from one to two years. A list of courses offered by these institutions with their duration and minimum admission requirements is given in Annexure I.
In 1981 there were 365 Ms run by Labour Ministry. Besides these there were some Ills which were managed by Ministry of Social Welfare
28 Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Industrial Training Institutes
or Tribal Welfare Department in the respective states. There were also some privately managed ITIs but no information is available about them.
The statistics presented in this section, however, relate to institutions run directly by the Government.
Performance of any educational venture can be judged with the help of a number of indicators. Four indicators considered useful for evaluating technical training are
(i) Provision of facilities
(ii) Utilisation of facilities
(iii) Performance of the pupil
(iv) Job placement.
Ideally the provision of facilities are covered by the avowed objectives as given in the policy documents. For example, to achieve universalisation of elementry education, it should be possible to provide schooling facilities to all children aged 6-14 within walking distance from their home. As regards technical education at school level, the Education Commission (1964-65) recommended that 50 per cent children enrolled at the secondary school level should go for industrial and technical training while the other 50 per cent should go for general education. However, as there are variety of institutions imparting technical training at the secondary level it is not sufficient to look at the provision of facilities in the ITIs alone. Therefore, a comparison will be made of the seating capacity per lakh of population in different states. Utilization of facilities means the extent to which the existing seating capacity is being utilized at any given time. This will be attempted at the state level by working out ratio of enrolment to the seating capacity. The utilization of seats by the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes will be compared with other people. Tradewise utilization of seats by different social groups will also be attempted.
Performance of pupil can mean two things, namely (1) successful completion of a stage of education, and (2) the grades secured in an examination. As no grades are awareded in the ITIs, the analysis here will be based on pass percentages only.
As no separate data are available of the number of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes who appeared for various examinations, we shall just compare their ratios at the time of admission and at the time of course completion. Consequently, it will not be possible to separate dropouts from failures. This distinction would, however be brought out through the analysis of micro level data from the selected institutions.
Growth of Technical and Vocational Education 29
Lastly, it is important to know as to how useful the training has been forjob? For example, one would like to know what percentage of trainees are able to get the job soon after the completion of the training? What is the average waiting time forjob? Is the job- commensurate with the skills acquired? Does the training equip the students pursue self-employment? Because of the non-availability of the secondary data it will not be possible to attempt job placement analysis. This will be attempted with micro level data at the institution level in a separate chapter.
In view of the above, in what follows performance of students in the ITIs specially of the disadvantaged sectors will be assessed in this chapter with the help of first three indicators.
Provision of Facilities There has been a rapid growth in the number of ITIs since Independence. In 1947 there were only 16 ITIs in the country. Their number increased to 161 in 1961 and to 365 in 1973. The seating capacity of the ITIs increased from just 39 thousands in 1960 to more than 155 thousands in 1973. Since 1973, there has however been emphasis on consolidation and diversification, The fev ITIs that were opened thereafter have been started by the Tribal Welfare Department and established only in the tribal areas. In 1980-81 the total seating capacity in all the ITIs of the country was 160 thousand pupils.
Appendix Table 3.3 gives statewise distribution of the number of industrial training institutions and their seating capacity. Their are large inter-state variations in the availability of facilities. With 50 ITIs, although Uttar Pradesh ranked first as regards number of institutions, it was Maharashtra which ranked first in terms of seating capacity. Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Tamil Nadu also had a seating capacity of more than 10,000 each. However, as the institutions differ in size and also the size of the state differ it will be more meaningful to look at die seating capacity per lakh of population. These have been presented in Appendix Table 3.4, which shows that among the union territories Chandigarh and Delhi have much better facility then any state or union territory. Among the states Punjab and Haryana were at the top. Seating capacity was very low (less than 20 per lakh of population) in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. It is noteworthy that seating capacity per lakh persons is positively correlated with the level of economic development. The states which were economically least de-
30 Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Industrial Training Institutes
veloped, namely, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajsthan and Uttar Pradesh, had low seating capacity implying thereby that the demand for vocational training might be limited in these states.
Utilisation of Facilities With the growth in the number of institutions and the seating capacity, the enrolment in the institutions has also increased manifolds over time. While the enrolment in engineering and non- engineering trades in 1960 was less than 35 thousands, in 1980 it was more than 135 thousands. There was greater expansion of seating capacity in the ITIs for the engineering trades than the non- engineering trades. Of the total enrolment in the ITIs roughly 95% was in the engineering trades.
At the national level, 92 per cent of the seats created in the ITIs, were being utilised in 1980-81 indicating almost full utilisation of the capacity (Appendix Table 3.5). Except for a few states the utilisation has been almost cent percent or even a little more than the capacity, the exceptions being Assam (68.6 per cent) Bihar (73.6 per cent), Meghalaya (50.6 per cent), Tripura (78.9 per cent) and West Bengal (65.6 per cent) besides die union territories of Arunachal Pradesh (51.2 percent) and Mizoram (70.4 per cent). It would be necessary for the respective states governments to look for the reasons for underutilization of seating capacity and to work out ways and means to improve their utilization in the next few years.
As the admission in the Ills is after completing at least grade VIII, it is expected that the entrants in these institutions will be at least 15 year old, the enrolment in the ITIs in India constituted 103 per lakh of population aged 15-24 in 1981.]*1 There were significant inter-state variations in enrolment per lakh persons aged 15-24 - it varied from a high of 298 in Punjab and 256 in Haryana to a low of 49 in Assam, 51 in Rajasthan and 53 in West Bengal. Among the smaller states and union territories Chandigarh and Delhi were having significantly higher enrolment in their ITIs (658 per lakh in Chandigarh and 421 in Delhi) whereas Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya had only 17 and 31 respectively. (Appendix Table 3.6).