coverl zakir hussain-12-1-09.cdr - National Council Of Educational

1897-1969

Mem

oria

l Lec

ture

Ser

ies

Zakir HusainSecond Memorial Lecture

2009

BY PADMINI SWAMINATHAN

NCERT

On the title page of the life-book of a teacher, what is

written is not knowledge but the subject of love.

– Zakir Husain

1878

ISBN 978-81-7450-929-1

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NCERTMEMORIAL LECTURE SERIES

Zakir Husain Second Memorial Lecture

Regional Institute of Education Mysore

30 January 2009

PADMINI SWAMINATHAN

First Edition

January 2009 Magha 1930

PD 1T MJ

Rs. 10.00

Published at the Publication Department by the Secretary,National Council of Educational Research and Training,Sri Aurobindo Marg, New Delhi - 110016 at printed at.................................

ISBN-978-81-7450-929-1

Contents

Our Objectives 1

SECTION I

Zakir HusainCreating Alternative Educational Paradigms

� TALAT AZIZ 3

SECTION II

Literacy and Levels of Formal Educationof the Indian PopulationA National Report Card 12

ABOUT THE SPEAKER 61

APPENDIX

(Enclosed Separately)

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1 More information on NCERT is available at: www.ncert.nic.in

OUR OBJECTIVE

The National Council of Educational Research and Training(NCERT) is an apex organisation, assisting and advisingthe Central and State Governments by undertakingresearch, survey, development, training, and extensionactivities for all stages of school and teacher education1.

One of the objectives of the Council is to act as aclearing-house and disseminator of ideas relating to schooland teacher education. We have initiated the currentMemorial Lecture series in order to fulfil this role and tocommemorate the life and work of great educationalthinkers. Our aim is to strive to raise the level of publicawareness about the seminal contributions made in thefield of education by eminent men and women of India. Weexpect that such awareness will set off a chain of discourseand discussion. This, we hope, will make education a livelysubject of intellectual inquiry while simultaneouslyencouraging a sustained public engagement with thisimportant domain of national life.

The memorial lecture series will cover public lecturescommemorating the life and work of nine eminent Indianeducational thinkers and practitioners �

Title Venue

Mahatma Gandhi Memorial India International Centre (IIC),Lectures New Delhi

Zakir Husain Memorial Regional Institute of Education,Lectures Mysore

Gijubhai Badhekha Memorial Regional Institute of Education,Lectures Ajmer

Tagore Memorial Lectures Regional Institute of Education,Bhubaneswar

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Mahadevi Verma Memorial Regional Institute of Education,Lectures Bhopal

B. M. Pugh Memorial North East Regional Institute ofLectures Education, Shillong

Savitri Phule Memorial Nehru Centre, Worli, MumbaiLectures

Marjorie Sykes Memorial Egmore Museum, ChennaiLectures

Sri Aurobindo Memorial Indian Institute of SocialLectures Sciences, Kolkata

We will invite men and women of eminence from theacademia and public life to deliver, in English or any otherIndian language these Memorial Lectures. Our intentionis to reach a large audience consisting teachers, students,parents, writers, artists, NGOs, government servants andmembers of local communities in particular.

The lectures will be made available on Compact Discs(CDs) and in the form of printed booklets for widerdissemination. Each booklet will consist of two sections:Section One highlighting the purpose of the memoriallectures and providing a brief sketch of the life and worksof the concerned educational thinker and Section Twogiving the lectures in full along with a brief background ofthe speaker.

We hope all these lecture series will be of use to ouraudiences as well as the wider public.

ANUPAM AHUJA

Convenor

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2 Professor of Education at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Facultyof Education, Jamia Millia Islamia. The author wishes to thankAnil Sethi and Anupam Ahuja, both from NCERT for enriching the textand for eagle-eyed editing.3 Rajmohan Gandhi, Understanding the Muslim Mind (Delhi, Penguin,2000), pp. 290-291.

SECTION I

ZAKIR HUSAIN

CREATING ALTERNATIVE EDUCATIONAL PARADIGMS

TALAT AZIZ2

On the title page of the life-book of a teacher, what iswritten is not knowledge but the subject of love.

� Zakir Husain

As with many other quotations, the above-mentionedwords may sound clichéd unless we realize that ZakirHusain, civic nationalist, Gandhian, economist, Presidentof India from 1967 to 1969, above all, a true lover ofchildren, lived it. Take, for instance, a momentous eventin Zakir Husain�s life, described for us by one of hisbiographers, Rajmohan Gandhi:

One day in 1933 when Zakir Husain was distributing sweets tothe boys who had passed a test in the primary school, a peon cameand whispered to him that his three-year old daughter, Rehana�was very ill. Zakir Husain continued to give away the sweets. Alittle later the peon came again and told him in his ear that Rehanahad died. Zakir Husain turned pale but did not stop what he wasdoing. Then the campus bell was rung and everyone learnt that Dr.Zakir Husain�s girl had died. Asked afterwards why he had notleft the school at once, Zakir Husain replied that �the children werefeeling so happy, he did not like to interrupt it�. His wife toldMujeeb later that for several days after the event Zakir Husain�spillow was wet every morning.3

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It was this love of children and an unflinching interest intheir well-being and happiness that led Zakir Husain tomake the transition from Economics (a subject in whichhe had been formally trained) to Education to which hecontributed ceaselessly. As Chair of a National Committeeon Nai Talim or Basic Education (as it came to be called),Zakir Husain helped create this alternative Gandhianparadigm and played a significant role in devising itssyllabi. Like many other nationalists, Zakir Husain wasno mere ivory-tower intellectual but an indefatigableinstitution-builder. He presided over Jamia Millia Islamiaand Aligarh Muslim University with distinction. As Vice-Chancellor of these institutions, he served as fund-raiser,accountant, secretary, editor and teacher � all rolled intoone for many long years. In the universities too heattempted to implement the credo, �learning by doing�, andtook a keen interest in their Education departments. Thetrue educationalist in him did not allow for a distinctionbetween school-education and the universities. ZakirHusain always viewed education as an organic whole.

THE EARLY YEARS

None other than his mother sowed the seeds oftruthfulness, self-discipline and universal love for mankindin Zakir Husain�s personality. She played a decisive rolein his upbringing, especially after his father died in 1907,when Zakir Husain was only ten years old. In keepingwith his family traditions, Zakir Husain�s early educationin the Quran, Persian and Urdu was carried out at home.In 1907 he was admitted in Class V to the Islamia HighSchool of Etawah, a residential institution founded byMaulvi Bashiruddin.

During his primary education Zakir Husain was underthe care and guidance of Syed Altaf Husain, theHeadmaster of the school, a rare teacher of great virtues,disciplinarian, and strict follower of his own principles. Hisinfluence on Zakir Husain was reflected in a paper �Talib-e-ilm ki Zindagi� (Life of a Student) that the latter presented

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in the school assembly when he was just thirteen yearsold. In his presentation, Zakir Husain described the dutiesof a student, as �� He [that is, a student] should propagateeducation among his illiterate brothers and shouldconsider the propagation of education as a part of his owneducation.� He ought to acquire education for the sakeof education� If not educated, he is not a man at all, hecannot do anything worthwhile in this world.� To drivehome, his central point Zakir Husain used Persian verses� �set your goals high, as by that you are rated, not onlyby the creator, but by those also who are created.� Thisshows that at the age of thirteen Zakir Husain had a clearunderstanding of what is education and what it can do toa person. Zakir Husain continued his studies at theMuhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, Aligarh from wherehe took an M.A. in Economics in 1920. He was appointeda Lecturer in the same year.

All through this period Zakir Husain also had aspiritual guide, Shaikh Hasan Shah, a sufi of the ChishtiSilsila. Hasan Shah had a lasting impact on his disciple.He taught him to cultivate patience and diligence and alife-long love for books.

A DEVELOPING EDUCATIONIST � SOME KEY MILESTONES

1920 was a crucial year for Zakir Husain, a sort of turningpoint in his life. This was the year when the Indian NationalCongress and the All India Khilafat Committee joinedhands in launching the Non-Cooperation Movement andGandhiji was touring the country to persuade teachersand students to leave government-administered schoolsand colleges. Zakir Husain who had a good grip overnational and international affairs was keen onunderstanding Gandhiji�s perspective. He attended one ofhis talks wherein Gandhiji urged fellow-countrymen toboycott the British system of education and join the Non-Cooperation Movement. He and his friends persuadedMaulana Mohammad Ali and Gandhiji to address theAligarh students. Though the meeting was not successful,

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Zakir Husain resigned from the post of lecturer and metHakim Ajmal Khan, Dr. M.A. Ansari, and MaulanaMohammad Ali in Delhi. They proposed to set up a NationalCentre of Education for Indian Youth. Thus, Zakir Husainbecame a pioneer of a new venture and Jamia Millia Islamiacame into existence on 29th October 1920. In 1921 ZakirHusain was appointed as a Lecturer in Economics at theJamia.

THE GERMAN INFLUENCE

Another milestone in becoming an educationist was ZakirHusain�s doctoral studies in Berlin. He had been persuadedby his close friend Khwaja Abdul Hameed to chooseGermany for this purpose. It was in Berlin that he firstmet Abid Husain and Mohammad Mujeeb, who werestudying in Oxford and came to Berlin in September 1923to work in a printing press. The three formed a troika andworked together for the next twenty-six years. Abid Husainwas writing his thesis on the educational ideas of HerbertSpenser, which he submitted in 1925.

The three years spent in Berlin nurtured the teacherand educationist in Zakir Husain. Though his specialsubject was British agrarian policies in India andAgricultural Economics, he was more interested in literatureand education. In particular, he attended Professor EdwardSpranger�s lectures and read his books. Professor Sprangerwas an outstanding figure in the field of Educational andCultural Philosophy. During his stay in Germany he alsocultivated a refined taste in music and theatre.

Zakir Husain was deeply influenced by Germanthought, particularly, by George Kerschensteiner�srevolutionary principles in Education. Kerschensteiner wascritical of bookish schools and had in fact founded a �Work-School�. He advocated that Head, Heart and Hand, shouldcontribute to the process of education, and education inturn should train all these. Kerschensteiner believed that�an educated person never considers himself complete�to strive naturally for education is a true indicator of a

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true education�. During his stay in Berlin Zakir Husaintravelled to many places in Germany and visited importantschools where various educational theories and methodsof teaching were being practised. He also gave lectures onthe philosophy of Gandhiji for whom he had great respect.

CONTRIBUTION TO A GROWING INSTITUTION

Zakir Husain�s far-reaching academic commitments, goingwell beyond Agricultural Economics, helped him broadenhis vision and develop a firm grasp of Education. He co-authored with Alfred Ehrenfreich a book in German onGandhiji, translated Plato�s Republic into Urdu, imbibingPlato�s reasoning and thoughts during the translation. Hefully believed in and practised Plato�s view that only propereducation frees one from mental slavery and helps in themanifestation of creative abilities. This is the only wayinnovativeness and imagination can be nurtured,knowledge, wisdom and civilizations advanced. Hisinterest in education and the Jamia Millia were inextricablyinterwoven, compelling him to accept an invitation to returnto the Jamia when the chance came his way.

Hakim Ajmal Khan and M. A. Ansari visited Zakir Sahibin Vienna in 1925. Hakim Sahib persuaded him to returnto Jamia after completing his education. He fulfilled hispromise in February 1926, inspiring his friends AbidHusain and Mohammad Mujeeb to work with him at theJamia. A journey for an educationist as well as aninstitution thus began from Qarol Bagh (Karol Bagh) whereJamia was shifted from Aligarh. Zakir Husain joined Jamiaas its Vice-Chancellor or Shaikhul Jamia at the young ageof twenty-nine.

In 1926 Zakir Husain went to Sabarmati Ashram todiscuss education and the Jamia with Gandhiji. Hereturned from there with a renewed zeal. Gandhiji too wassatisfied about the future of Jamia being in the hands of aconfident and secular Zakir. Gandhiji�s support for Jamiawas an asset and later he sent his grandson Rasiklal toJamia for his education.

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If any single educational principle guided Zakir Husainin Jamia for nearly twenty-three years, it was �learning bydoing�. His concept of �doing� was to a large extent spiritualalso. He did not advise, preach or guide his fellow-workersbut drove them to examine their own will power and furtherbuild upon their intelligence and sensitivity. He madeJamia a �School of Work� where one found only a minimumuse of books and many practical activities with educationalvalues. He considered a true �work-school� to be a placewhere children acquire the habit of planning, of consideringways or means thoroughly before they start work andexamine their achievements critically when they have donewhat they set out to do. He introduced the Project Methodof learning in schools, as he considered it appropriate forthe mental and social development of children.

An important feature of the Jamia schools was thatthey encouraged teachers to practise the constructivistapproach, something that the NCERT�s present-dayNational Curriculum Framework advocates. Zakir Husainhimself taught at primary, secondary and higher classesin Jamia. Being an economist he introduced the conceptof banking through a �children�s bank�, �children�s book-shop� and the like at Jamia�s primary school where studentsin residential hostels needed to manage their own money.The school also maintained a small zoo and farm, whichwere looked after by children under the supervision ofteachers. Zakir Husain considered childhood as the mostimportant period of life for the development of personality.He observed that children�s nature compels them everymoment of their waking life to experiment, to break andmake things. So at the initial stage all children can beeducated through similar practical activities.

For Zakir Husain the purpose of education was threefold � to develop students� faculties, to transmit to themtheir cultural heritage and to awaken in them an innerself. The best way for children to develop their mentalfaculties is to let them think through their hands, to acquireknowledge about things through practical use. Therefore

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it is essential that practical work be made the instrumentand focus of all mental training and education. Manualwork proves to be more effective than books in promotingmental development. For Zakir Husain education was alsothe transmission of spiritual and cultural values of a nationto its younger generation in such a way as to make it anintegral part of their life. For this, the educator has first torealise these values in herself and then to transmit them toher pupils. Furthermore, he regarded national integrationas an essential objective of education and urged Indianeducationalists to discover effective means for itsattainment.

In 1937 India attained a measure of provincialautonomy and Gandhiji attempted to persuade the newpopular governments of various provinces to adopt naitalim or Basic Education as a national system of education.Zakir Husain agreed with the spirit of Gandhiji�s �BasicEducation� but was not satisfied with the mode. At aconference on the subject held at Wardha, he disagreed onseveral counts with Gandhiji. Aware of Zakir Husain�spotential, Gandhiji gave him the responsibility of framingthe curriculum for Basic Education in schools and askedhim to do so within a month. Not only did he accomplishthis successfully, he also undertook to train teachers. Thusa new department, �Ustadon-ka-Madrasa� (Teachers�College) was started. As is evident from the Patel MemorialLecture, delivered by Zakir Husain many years later, hebelieved that teachers be trained �in the technique of suchcompetent observations as will enable them to understandtheir pupils and direct their educational work in the lightof this understanding.�

SERVING A NATIONAL CALL

Zakir Husain remained associated, after Independence,with education as with the Jamia and Aligarh. Thepartition of the country had led to the migration of a sizablesection of the Muslim elite to Pakistan. In the

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circumstances, Nehru and Maulana Azad persuaded ZakirHusain to accept the Vice-Chancellorship of Aligarh MuslimUniversity and provide academic stability to the institutionin the larger interests of the nation. Zakir Husain servedin that capacity for nine years until he became theGovernor of Bihar. At heart, though, he remained a teacherthroughout his life and displayed keen interest in academicwork.

As Vice-President as well as President of India he spokeon a variety of themes including his favourite subjects ofeducation and culture, science education, and sports inschools. He also shared thoughts on Gandhiji, special-needs education, the responsibilities and qualities of goodteachers, education and the status of women, and the socialresponsibilities of the people of India, apart from addressingmany other matters related to national and world affairs.

On the occasion of Teacher�s Day (5 September) 1964,he communicated a message emphasizing that �theteachers are responsible not just for themselves but alsofor the whole society. A teacher is the custodian of thehighest values created and cherished by his people.Teachers have a mission and consciousness that they areengaged in the most significant task of building a freepeople.� You will have to transform mercenary labour intodedicated service. You will have to rise above thesuffocating dust of uniformed partisanship into the purerregion of impartial objectivity�. He urged them not to forcechildren into silently brooding over books, unwillinglyswallowing inassimilable information. He wanted them tobe up and about, discovering things for themselves, notbeing condemned for their bursting energy.

Zakir Husain breathed his last on 3 May 1969. In hercondolence message Indira Gandhi described Zakir Husainas �an unforgettable teacher, a builder and a writer ofdistinction.� He chose the field of education because of hisgreat faith in the power of education to mould theindividual and society. He took pride in calling himself ateacher, believing that only through education would the

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people gain a vision of the future while preserving theirold timeless values.

Today we see a renewed interest in reinventing oureducation system as also in education as a vehicle of socialchange. In perceiving the child as a discoverer andconstructor of knowledge for herself, the NationalCurriculum Framework-2005 offers us a step in the rightdirection. Achieving this lofty objective will indeed be atrue homage to Zakir Husain, a great teacher andeducationist, a humanist par excellence.

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LITERACY AND LEVELS OF FORMAL

EDUCATION OF THE INDIAN POPULATION

A NATIONAL REPORT CARD

PROFESSOR PADMINI SWAMINATHAN

RELEVANCE: Dr. Zakir Husain, I gather, chose the field ofeducation because of his great faith in the power ofeducation to mould the individual and society and in hisbelief that only through education would people gain avision of the future while preserving inherited pricelessvalues. Sixty odd years after Independence it is time werevisit the vision of this great educationist. While I am notcompetent to pronounce a judgment on the status ofpreservation of our inherited values, I have made a modestattempt to sift through statistical data and official reportsto examine how educationally �inclusive� Indian�development� has been thus far, and, whether, the presentpattern and direction of �development�, particularly as faras the field of education is concerned, is capable ofachieving the vision of social change envisaged by leaderssuch as Dr. Zakir Husain.

ABSTRACT

Through an analysis of official data on Education andthrough an examination of official Reports that have dealtwith the theme of Higher Education including Vocational/Technical Education, we explore the phenomenon ofexclusion from and inclusion in �development�. Analysisof available secondary data on employment andeducation for the decade 1991-2001 (Census) and post-

SECTION II

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2001 (National Sample Survey) reveals a complex pictureof exclusion and inclusion at the macro level. In 2001, 63per cent of the male population has been returned as�literate� compared to 45 per cent of the female populationnationally. The equivalent figures for rural India are 59per cent males as against 38 per cent females, and forurban India 75 per cent and 63 per cent. In other words,for the country as a whole and after 60-odd years ofindependence, 37 per cent males and 55 per cent femalessuffer exclusion from formal literacy.

The analyses of data relating to those returned asliterate provide a picture of the �nature and level ofinclusion�: for the country as a whole, 66 per cent ofliterate males have not gone beyond �matric/ secondary�against 72 per cent for literate females; only 7 per cent ofliterate males and 5 per cent of literate females figure inthe category, �graduate and above other than technicaldegree�, while the �technical degree� category has slightlyless than 2 per cent of the literate males against 0.6 percent of literate females.

In the recent past the subject of higher education ingeneral and of the skill level of the population in particular,has received considerable official recognition. The Reportsof two Task Force Committees on Employment set up bythe Central Planning Commission (Planning Commission,2001, 2002) the Report of the Review Committee on AllIndia Council for Technical Education, September 2003,the Report on Conditions of Work and Promotion ofLivelihoods in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS, 2007)have, in different ways, addressed the theme of themismatch between the products of higher education andthe absorptive capacity of the economy. Similarly, a WorldBank study on Skill Development including the system ofVocational Education and Training in India (January2008) dwells at considerable length on the nature, scopeand adequacy of existing facilities for training in the publicand private sector.

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This presentation brings together the findings andrecommendations of the different reports on the theme ofhigher education and the interface of the latter withemployment. The emphasis on the interface of highereducation with employment is crucial. While broad-basingvocational education/training is necessary, nevertheless,for the cause of social justice to be sufficiently andeffectively served, the material base needs also to beexpanded simultaneously.

INTRODUCTION: A RECAPITULATION

Almost a decade ago, I had engaged extensively withanalysis of secondary data, mainly Census 1991,(supported with field-based information) to explicate how,an otherwise �economically and socially developed� statesuch as Tamil Nadu perpetuated development-induced�violence� on its citizens, particularly women, adolescentgirls and girl children, with severity of this violenceincreasing for females of the SC community (Swaminathan,2002). A quick recap of the main arguments and data-related findings of the above paper is in order here notonly to enable an assessment of the situation a decadelater, but to also deliberate on the implications that themacro scenario as captured by our official data systemshas for our continuing efforts to make development moreinclusive besides �engendering� development itself.

In the paper mentioned above, Census statistics on�education� was examined intergenerationally to investigate(a) the then level of education of Tamil Nadu�s population;and (b) emerging future scenarios. The latter was attemptedthrough analyses of data relating to school attendance statusof child (5-14 years) and adolescent (15-19 years) population.Our examination of the education data was complementedwith an examination of data on employment to gauge notjust levels of literacy per se, but also to draw out the [statistical]nature of the emerging relationship between employment andeducation across age and caste. Hence data on educationand employment was provided for Tamil Nadu population

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by caste, sex, residence and age. In addition we computed ameasure of �gender gap� in levels of literacy � females per 1000males - at each educational level, to get an idea of �genderdistance�.

Our analyses of Census data 1991 for Tamil Nadu,(Appendix Table 1) gave the following picture:(i) The proportion of illiterates (those with no formal

education) among the SC population was significantlyhigher for both males and females when compared tothe non-SC male and female population respectively.

(ii) The problem of illiteracy in the population became morecomplex when the data was disaggregated further bysex and residence. Far more women were illiterate whencompared to men; far more rural persons were amongthe illiterates when compared to the urban population.

(iii) That literacy did not necessarily and automatically gettranslated into higher levels of education was clearlyevident from data relating to levels of education.Taking total (rural plus urban) population as awhole, we found that:

! Almost 45 per cent of Tamil Nadu female population(of all ages) was literate against 64 per cent for malepopulation. When we disaggregated this data by levelof education we got the following picture:

! Just 15 per cent of the literate females had completedprimary education against 20 per cent for males;

! Only 6 per cent of the literate females had completedsecondary education against 10 per cent for males;

! 1.21 per cent only of the literate females belonged tothe �graduate and above� category against 3 per centof males.

The picture turned more dismal when we analysed thedata by caste. Just 30 per cent of SC females were literateagainst 49 per cent for SC males; only 10 per cent of SCfemales had completed primary education against 17 percent for SC males; slightly above 2 per cent of SC females hadcompleted higher secondary against 6 per cent for SC males;

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less than half a per cent of SC females belonged to the�graduate and above category� against slightly more than 1per cent for SC males.

Needless to add that the detailed break-up of data bycaste, sex and residence, for an otherwise �developed� stateof the Indian Union brought out quite starkly the gap ineducational levels between SCs and Non-SCs whicheverway the data was classified � urban/rural, male/female.The least educated were the rural SC females, 74 per centof whom were illiterate.

Among the issues that we highlighted then was themanner in which officials, policy makers and socialscientists conflated literacy levels with educational levels.Using official data sources we showed that, while theliteracy base in educationally developed states such asTamil Nadu and Kerala may be relatively high the formaleducational levels of their population were by no meanscommendable. Thus, for example, we found that Keralaand Tamil Nadu were only marginally better than Biharand Rajasthan, with respect to the educational category�matriculation but below graduate�. In the �graduate andabove� category, Rajasthan and Bihar were almost equalto if not better than Tamil Nadu and Kerala, particularlyin the urban areas. This held true even when we deductedthe SC population from the general population andconcentrated on the educational achievement of the Non-SC population (Appendix Table 2).

Our reading of the above finding was as follows: Keralaand Tamil Nadu have, historically, and through consciousstate interventions, managed to widen their literacy baseto cover as many segments of the population, includinggirls and the socially deprived sections of society. Hence,the issue of inequality in access to education at lower levelshad to a significant extent been successfully addressed inthese two states. What had not received adequate attentionin these states was the issue of higher education andprofessional skill acquisition, that is, the wider attainmentof education beyond the �matriculation� category. In Bihar

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and Rajasthan, on the other hand, the stark inequality ineducational achievement between rural and urban areas,and between males and females was very clear. Only athin stream of the urban population was able to accesseducation at higher levels, leaving the vast majority behind.Therefore, we emphasised the need to talk of state specificpolicies; in the case of states such as Tamil Nadu andKerala we could perceive the emergence of serious socialproblems because of inadequate investment in highereducation by the state consequent to larger numbers ofstudents knocking at the doors of secondary and highereducation as these states veered towards universal primaryeducation.

The negative impact of continuing caste and gender gapin school attendance could be gauged to some extent fromdata on levels of education of the worker population. In anutshell, these data revealed:! A clear polarisation in the educational status of SC and

non-SC male workers. The non-SC workers were clearlymore literate and also (formally) more educationallyqualified when compared to non-SC males.

! In the case of females, whether SC or non-SC, theproportion of illiteracy among female workers,particularly in the rural areas was significantly high.84 per cent of SC female workers and 71 per cent ofnon-SC female workers had no formal education.

! Thus, between the sexes, relatively more males ingeneral and male workers in particular were literateand better off educationally than females in general and/or female workers in particular. Further, in our analysisof the data on employment, we found that theproportion of female child workers (5-14) was higherthan the proportion of male child workers. Again,among female child workers, the proportion of SCfemale child workers was greater than non-SC femalechild workers. We also found that there was a significantdrop in female adolescents (15-19) attending school.

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Given that female workers were proportionately lesseducationally endowed than females in general, oursurmise was that for most females (more than formales) employment was at the expense of education.This proposition was true for both SC and non-SCfemale workers. But between SCs and non-SCs wefound that, in Tamil Nadu, a high female WPR wasgenerally equivalent to high SC female WPR, which againcorrelated with (a) lowest caste status, and, (b) leasteducation (Appendix Table 3).A decade later, is there a change in the way we view

our record of �development�? And, do we still characteriseour �development� as one that continues to inflict �violence�on the poor in general and women in particular? My ownsubmission is that not only does �development violence�continue but the violence itself has become more overt withsevere consequences for the poor and poor women inparticular. Sixty years after independence, our Plans arestill struggling to make �development� inclusive, with theEleventh Five Year Plan Approach Document being entitled,�Towards More Inclusive Growth� � an indirectacknowledgment that the previous ten five-year plans havefailed the �inclusiveness� test.

This text is organised in two parts as follows. Part 1has two sections. In Section 1, available secondary datahas been analysed to compare and understand �change�during the decade of the nineties using, largely, data fromCensus 2001 and from data provided by the CentralStatistical Organisation in the various National SampleSurvey Reports. While the aim in this Section is to capturethe all-India situation in 2001, a focus on Tamil Nadu iscontinued in order to unravel whether �better developedstates� such as Tamil Nadu have been able to translatefaster growth into more �inclusive� growth during the decadeof the nineties. In Section 2 we shift our emphasis to adiscussion of the interface between education andemployment and the record of the Indian state inoperationalising the concepts of gainful and decent

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employment. In particular this section brings togetherofficial findings on the state of vocational/professionaleducation in the country.

Part 2 of the text discusses the findings of a field-basedstudy undertaken jointly by the author in Tamil Nadu(Livelihood Assessment Study)1. The �Livelihood AssessmentSurvey� (IDA, 2004) was an attempt to understand thenature of risks faced by the poorest among the poor andalso their coping mechanisms. The relevance of reproducinghere the observations from the survey lie in the remarkablemanner in which people on the ground, women inparticular, in their own words linked their inability to makea transition to a better life because of the disjuncture thatthey perceived between the macro-economic issues ofemployment and growth on the one hand, and the realitiesof their everyday life on the other. In the process they alsorevealed their growing anxieties about the uncertain futurefacing them, since macro-economic development did notseem to directly benefit them and which therefore forcedgovernments to institute ad hoc welfare policies that wereby nature non-universal, discretionary and not in synchwith ground requirements. A more crucial significance ofthese findings also lie in the fact that, they, inadvertently,provide a nuanced understanding of villagers� perceptionsof the circumstances that force them to make genderedchoices on a range of issues, including education of theirchildren.

PART 1

Section 1

Understanding Educational Inclusion/Exclusion frommacro-dataAnalysis of available2 secondary data on employment andeducation for the decade 1991-2001 (Census) and post2001 (National Sample Survey) reveal a complex pictureof exclusion and inclusion at the macro level. While in

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2001 per centages of population returned as �Literate� haveshown significant improvements for all classes of peoplewhen compared to 1991, yet only 63% of the malepopulation and 45% of the female population has beenreturned as �Literate� at the national level.

When literacy data of total population of the country isdivided into Scheduled Caste and Non-Scheduled Caste,we realize that, against 65% of Non-Scheduled Casteliterate males, only 55% of Scheduled Caste males areliterate; similarly against 47% of literate Non-ScheduledCaste females, only 35% of Scheduled Caste women areliterate. In rural India, 59% of males are �Literate� against38% of �Literate� females. For Urban India, the respectivefigures for Literacy are 75% and 63%.

In other words, for the country as a whole and after 60odd years of Independence,! 37% males and 55% females suffer exclusion from

formal literacy

! 45% SC males and 65% SC females suffer exclusionfrom formal literacy

! 41% Rural males and 62% Rural females sufferexclusion from formal literacyThe further analyses of data relating to those returned

as �Literate� provide a picture of the �nature and level ofinclusion�. More important, the data once again cautionsus against reading �literacy� as �education�, a point we madeearlier. For example, when we examine the data for levelsof formal education, we find that, for the country as a whole,almost 24% of Literate Males are �Below Primary� (28% forLiterate females); only 15% of Literate Males have managedto come up to the �Matriculation/Secondary� level (12.5%for Literate Females); only 8% of the Literate Males (5% forLiterate Females) have managed to cross the �Graduate andAbove� category. The picture gets more dismal as wedisaggregate the data by caste and residence and withineach by gender (Appendix Table 4).

In Appendix Table 5 we have examined data relatingto the educational level of Tamil Nadu population in an

21

attempt to understand how �inclusive� better �developed�states of the Indian Union are. On several parameters, TamilNadu state scores over the average for the country as awhole; again when we compare Appendix Table 1 andAppendix Table 5, we realize that the state has madetremendous strides since 1991 to close the literacy gap atall levels: between genders, between rural/urban andbetween Scheduled and Non-Schedules Castes. Yet, thetranslation of �Literacy� into more and better �Formal Levelsof Education� for all classes and categories of populationremains elusive. In other words, economic growth is stillnot �inclusive� for large numbers of people if formaleducational level is taken as an indicator of �inclusive�growth.

Educational levels of Worker Population

The analysis of literacy levels of the �worker� populationfor 2001 reveals a disturbing contrast between male andfemale workers. While almost 71% of the male workers areliterate [against 63% literacy among males in thepopulation in general], only 36% female workers are literate[against 45% literacy among females in the population ingeneral]. In other words, while �development� may haveincreased the work participation rate for females, it hasnot translated into a greater proportion of literate womenbecoming workers as has happened in the case of males.What is also of concern is that, this national picture ofrelatively greater illiteracy among female worker populationis repeated in socially and economically developed statessuch as Tamil Nadu (Refer Appendix Table 6).

The debates among feminists and women�s studiesscholars around issues of relatively larger numbers ofwomen workers being crowded in low paying jobs and intasks designated as unskilled needs to also factor in thetheme of why employment and education is moving inopposite directions as far as females are concerned.

Using Census data we have computed a measure tounderstand the distance between the genders in levels of

22

literacy, among the general population as well as amongthe worker population � what we have termed the gendergap, namely, females per 1000 males (Appendix Table 7 �A & B). For the country as a whole, for every 1000 literatemales in the general population, 666 females are literate.But among the worker population, for every 1000 literatemale workers, only 234 female workers are literate. As wedisaggregate the �literate� population figures, the starknessof the distance between the genders among the generalpopulation and among the worker population becomessharper. Thus, in the category, �Graduate and above otherthan technical degree�, for every 1000 males we have only490 females in the general category; but in the workerpopulation category this figure drops to 165. In the�Technical Degree or Diploma equal to degree or post-graduate� category, for every 1000 males we have 388females in the general population category and only 264females in the worker population category.

A point also to be noted from data is the proportion ofpopulation returned as �Non-Workers� and the proportionof �Literate non-workers� among males and females(Appendix Table 8-A & B). For the country as a whole,48% of males have been returned as �non-workers� against74% for females. The urban areas have a larger proportionof population returned as �non-workers� when comparedto the rural areas. However, unlike in the case of males,the rates of literacy for female �non-workers� are higher thanthe rates of literacy for females in the population in general,and in both rural and urban areas. The same is true forstates such as Tamil Nadu, indicating and emphasisingthe phenomena that social and economic development(such as what states like Tamil Nadu represent) are notnecessarily gender just. Despite the fact that states likeTamil Nadu reveal �higher than national level� workparticipation rates for females, these rates are still far belowthe rates obtaining for males in Tamil Nadu; further, risinglevels of female literacy in Tamil Nadu are not reflected inthe literacy levels of the worker population. �Development�

23

then, has not been able to reverse the opposite directionin which literacy and employment have been moving forfemales both at the national level and including in stateswhose economic and social indicators of development arebetter than the national figures.

The 61st round of the National Sample Survey (NSS) onEmployment and Unemployment Situation in Indiacovering the period July 2004�June 2005 provides anotherfacet of the disproportionately greater education-employment divergence for females in the country. TheNSS provides data on what it calls the education levelspecific worker population ratio, namely, the number ofpersons of age 15 years and above who are usuallyemployed in a particular education category per 1000persons in that education category (Appendix Table 9).Appendix Table 9 also provides comparative informationfrom earlier rounds. What is revealing is the very low levelsof educated employed among the females; thus, forinstance, in rural India, while 851 males per 1000 malesin the category �Graduate and above� are employed, in thecase of females, of every 1000 females in the category�Graduate and above�, only 345 females are in employment.For urban India, the respective figures for the sameeducational category are 795 and 290.

Section 2

The statistically visible disjuncture between educationand employment sketched above calls for an examinationof the nature of discourse (or more correctly, the lack ofdiscourse) between what passes for higher education inthe country and the ability of the economy to absorb theproducts of higher education through creation of �quality�3

employment. Research to unravel and understand theinterface between education and economic developmenthas hardly begun in India (Swaminathan, 2007). Even so,the levels of unemployment among the educated has ledto demands to reduce the intake and/or, close downparticular streams of higher education, declare certain

24

other streams as non-utility courses, etc. At another level,the state in India faced with the embarrassment of havingto answer for large numbers of formally illiterate personsas well as for large numbers of �out of school� children, hasreacted by turning the issue into one of competingresources between higher and elementary education. Theexcuse of competing resources flies in the face of the factthat, in India, only 7 per cent of the population in the age-group 17 to 24 attends higher educational institutions asagainst 92% of the eligible age group population attendinghigher educational institutions in USA, 52% in U.K. and45% in Japan (Geetha Rani, 2003).

The argument of this text is certainly not that thesubject of higher education has not been academicallyengaged with; our concern, however, is with the interfacethat this education has with economic development ingeneral and employment in particular. This interface orthe lack of it has merited very little academic attention.The controversy around the report, entitled, A PolicyFramework for Reforms in Education, submitted to thePrime Minister�s Council on Trade and Industry (Ambaniand Birla, 2000) provides an illustration of the particularnature of our concern. Briefly, the Ambani-Birla Reportargues, among other things, for an overall change in theapproach to higher education, one where there is full costrecovery from students of public higher educationinstitutions and immediate privatization of entire highereducation except those areas of education involving�disciplines that have no market orientation� (quoted in,Ravi Kumar, T and Sharma, V. 2003: 607). The Ambani-Birla Report has drawn flak from all over, particularlyacademicians. While, very rightly, these critiques4 havecondemned the report and its authors for perceiving highereducation as largely a profitable industry, not a singlecritique, that we have read so far, has taken theindustrialist-authors to task for not including even a singleline outlining industry�s responsibility towards theproducts of higher education. The state in India, for its

25

part, is bent on downsizing higher education throughstarving Universities of resources, freezing appointmentsand encouraging commercialisation (Ravi Kumar andSharma, 2003).

It is important to point out in this context that in muchof the literature covering particularly the developed as wellas the East Asian (miracle) economies, the state has playeda signal role, either through direct interventions or byfacilitating the setting up of appropriate institutions. Theissue of state intervention in development is crucial at thisjuncture given the policies of international bodies like theWorld Bank. The conditionalities of the Bank includeasking recipient states to pursue uniform policies ofprogressive withdrawal from several activities in favor ofmarketisation and privatisation ostensibly to promoteefficiency and reduce fiscal deficit. Bennell andSegerstrom�s (1998) article dealing with vocationaleducation and training in developing countries offers atrenchant critique of the World Bank�s shift in educationalpriorities in favor of primary education. According to theauthors:

The World Bank has also been trying to convincegovernments in developing countries that, in terms oftheir own resource commitment, basic education shouldbe their top priority and that public expenditure on VET(Vocational Education and Training) should be reducedsignificantly (ibid: 271).

According to the World Bank, (as quoted by theauthors):

Vocational and technical skills are best imparted inthe workplace, following general education. The privatesectors should be directly involved in the provision andgovernance of vocational schooling. .. Enterprise-ledtraining is usually the most cost-effective means ofdeveloping worker skills. By comparison, governmentdelivery in most countries has proved expensive andprovided trainees with few marketable skills. .. Especiallyin the area of training, governments should focus moreon financing and less on production (ibid: 272).

26

In its publication, The East Asian Miracle, the WorldBank (1993) argues that by giving priority to expandingthe primary and secondary bases of the education pyramid,East Asian governments have stimulated the demand forhigher education while relying to a large extent on theprivate sector to satisfy that demand.

Bennell and Segerstrom (1998) expose completely thefactual inaccuracy and specious interpretation of eventsby the World Bank in the High Performing AsianEconomies (HPAEs) to bolster its agenda of pushingthrough privatisation and marketisation. Neither in theHPAEs nor in the mature industrial market economies,the authors note, has there been any withdrawal ofgovernments from their VET systems. On the contrary,their governments are becoming increasingly involved inall aspects of skill training, in particular the developmentof core competencies among the workforce as a whole, anda wide range of occupational training. The authors areapprehensive that the medium to long-term developmentcosts of failing to support VET could be potentially veryserious for LDCs. They find it ironic that the Bank hasturned its back on VET precisely at a time when thedevelopment process is becoming increasingly skill-driven,particularly in the traded goods sectors where countrieshave or could have comparative advantage.

While the Bank extols the virtues of the educationdevelopment strategies of the HPAEs, these countries arein fact prime examples of where governments haveadopted from the very onset aggressive, proactivemanpower development strategies. These have beenbased on a medium to long-term vision of occupationalskill requirements rather than short term, market-drivenconsiderations (ibid: 286).

In the recent past the subject of higher education ingeneral and of the skill level of the population in particular,has received considerable official recognition. The Reportsof two Task Force Committees on Employment set up bythe Central Planning Commission (Planning Commission,

27

2001, 2002), the Report of the Review Committee on AllIndia Council for Technical Education (September 2003),the Report on Conditions of Work and Promotion ofLivelihoods in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS, 2008) �have, in different ways, addressed the theme of themismatch between the products of higher education andthe absorptive capacity of the economy. Similarly, a WorldBank study on Skill Development including the system ofVocational Education and Training in India (January2008) dwells at considerable length on the nature, scopeand adequacy of existing facilities for training in the publicand private sector. Among the reports mentioned above,the Report of the Review Committee on AICTE, given itsmandate to suggest steps to revitalize technical educationin the country, has frontally addressed a major componentof higher education based skill development, namelyengineering education.

OFFICIAL SPEAK ON HIGHER EDUCATION AND SKILL

DEVELOPMENT: SALIENT FINDINGS

Planning Commission Task Force Reports, 2001,2002 on Employment and Unemployment

In the space of just two years the Central PlanningCommission of India constituted two Committees toexamine the �problem� of growing incidence ofunemployment and under-employment in the country.5

Our purpose here is not to discuss the politics of why,within a space of two years, we have had two officialcommittees set up by the same department to examinethe same theme. Rather, for us the important aspect inboth the Reports is the very considerable emphasis thathas been placed on the lack of interface betweenemployment and education. In the process both theReports have expanded the definition of �quality� ofemployment to include the �skill� component of thoseemployed and of those returned as unemployed(Swaminathan, 2005).

28

Both reports emphasize the fact that there has been asteady decline in the job creating capacity of the economy,which decline has accelerated since 1993-94. For example,the Reports point out that the employment growth fell to1.07 per cent per annum (between 1993-94 and 1999-2000) from 2.7 per cent per annum in the past (that is,between 1983 and 1993-94) in spite of acceleration in thegrowth of domestic product from 5.2 per cent (between1983 and 1994-94) to 6.7 per cent (between 1993-94 and1999-2000). This in turn means that the capacity of jobcreation per unit of output went down about three timescompared to that in the 80s and early 90s. The organizedsector�s employment generating capacity (measured interms of employment elasticity) came down to near zero;in the public sector, it has been negative in most cases.Thus the major source of employment generation and forlabor absorption is the unorganized sector of the economywhose employment weightage is as high as 92 per cent (ofthe total employed labor force) (Planning Commission,2001: 34 and Planning Commission, 2002: 2 and 26).

On examining all major sources of information, theCommittees found that the rate of unemployment in Indiahas increased significantly in 1993-94 and was above 7.3per cent in 1999-2000 compared to 6.0 per cent in 1993-94 on Current Daily Status (CDS) basis.6 The number ofunemployed has increased from 20.13 million in 1993-94 to 26.58 million in 1999-2000. Nearly 74 per cent ofthe unemployed are in rural areas, while 60 per cent ofthe unemployed are educated (higher secondary andabove).

Another dimension of the employment-unemploymentproblem is the serious mismatch between the expectationsof the new entrants to the labor force and the quality ofemployment opportunities available to them as revealedby the very high unemployment among certain groups,especially among educated youth. �Given the highexpectations of the increasingly better educated newentrants to the labor force the employment problem for

29

this group cannot be addressed by creating more jobs ofthe same low quality that exist at present. What is neededis a strategy that will create more high quality jobs thatgenerate higher levels of income� (Planning Commission,2001: 41). This despite the fact that, overall, educationallevels of the labor force in India are very low. About 44 percent of all workers in 1999-2000 were illiterate andanother 22.7 per cent had schooling only up to the primarylevel. �If we define the minimum level of education necessaryto function in a modern economy as schooling up to themiddle level, then only about 33.2 per cent of the laborforce had schooling of that level and above. The per centagewas higher at 57.4 per cent for the urban labor force, butit was correspondingly worse in rural areas, with only 25.4per cent for the rural labor force meeting these standards�(Planning Commission, 2001: 124).

The regional disaggregation of unemployment dataraises further issues of concern. The unemployment rate(on the CDS basis) is higher in high literacy states, almost21 per cent in Kerala; next is West Bengal with 15 per centfollowed by Tamil Nadu at 12 per cent of their respectivelabor force. Further in each of these states, the incidenceof unemployment among youths is even higher and moreso for females. Among female youth in Kerala, theunemployment rate is as high as 46 per cent, in WestBengal it is 39 per cent and nearly as high in Tamil Nadu.Once again this feature of higher incidence ofunemployment among youths needs to be juxtaposedagainst the positive aspect of increasing levels of educationdiscernible among the younger age groups of thepopulation7.

The statistics discussed above relate to generaleducation, which is not the same thing as possession of�marketable skills�. At the same time it is not easy toquantify the level of skills in the labor force since suchdata are not readily available. However, in 1993-94 theNational Sample Survey Organisation of India conducteda survey where information on the possession of 30 different

30

marketable skills by persons in the labor force was sought.The results of this component of the survey reveal thathardly 10 per cent of the male workers and 6 per cent offemale workers in the rural areas possessed specificmarketable skills. The urban areas returned relativelybetter figures but still abysmally low by any yardstick �19.6 per cent for male workers and 11 per cent for femaleworkers.

Both the Committees emphasize the painful fact thatthe level of vocational8 skills in the labor force in the agecategory 20-24 has vocational skills whereas the percentage in industrial countries is much higher, varyingbetween 60 per cent and 80 per cent. It may be arguedthat in developing countries like India, economicallyproductive skills are acquired not only in formal training/education institutions but also through the family. But italso needs to be stressed that currently, the traditionalartisan classes are among the poorest, in economic terms,in the country. �The developing countries� have percentages that are significantly lower than the developedcountries, but they are still much higher than India,example, Mexico at 28 per cent and Peru at 17 per cent.Differences in definitions may make comparisonssomewhat unreliable but the level in India is clearly fartoo low� (Planning Commission, 2001: 128).

One of the Committees (Planning Commission, 2001)has devoted considerable space in its Report to discussthe nature of vocational education and training, and thesystem of apprenticeship available to students in India.Its overall assessment of the situation is as follows:

The actual number of persons expected to enter thelabor force (on the 1.8 per cent labor force growthassumption) is about 12.3 million per year. Allowing forunderutilization of seats in training institutions and someoverlaps, the per centage of those entering the labor forcewith some degree of formal training is probably around1.5 million or about 12 per cent of the gross new entrantsin to the labor force. While a significant number of the

31

new entrants will be absorbed in various types ofunskilled labor in agricultural and non-agriculturaloccupations, where skills are not needed, the level of skillendowment of new entrants to the labor force revealedby these numbers is clearly not consistent with triggeringa process of rapid economic growth and high qualityemployment generation. The inadequacy of trainingcapacity in quantitative terms is not the only problem.There are also serious problems relating to quality(Planning Commission, 2001: 133).

An added feature of the above Committee�s Report isthat, it has tried to map the �School-to-work� transitionsystems in several countries, and has even provided anelaborate table comparing the vocational training systemsof India and the Republic of Korea (ibid: 146). Our point ofdeparture with the Committee�s Report lies in the completesilence that ensues thereafter on how other countries havebeen able to not only operationalize their �School-to-work�transition-enabled vocational education andapprenticeship systems but also make it as broad-basedas possible to cover large numbers of their school-goingpopulation � a feature conspicuous by its absence in India.An examination of the systems of vocational education inother countries would no doubt enable us to understandto some extent the kind of institutions that have been putin place, the nature and depth of interactions among theseinstitutions, so that it becomes possible to gauge howsmoothly or otherwise students are able to make thetransition to work. Much more significant, however, in ouropinion, is the need to capture the kind of discourse thatpreceded these arrangements in these countries, in the firstplace, and the changing nature of the discourse over time.It is our contention, that a large part of the explanation forthe poor record in vocational training and the almostcomplete lack of interface between even this minisculevocational education and employment in India has a lot todo with the absence of any worthwhile discourse on thissubject in post-independent India, and the consequent

32

inability to set up appropriate institutions and systems toforge such an interface.

Report of the National Commission on Enterprisesin the Unorganised Sector on Conditions of Work andPromotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganized Sector,(2008)

A signal service of the above Commission is the collationand analysis of data to provide as comprehensive a pictureof the segment of the economy that employs the bulk ofthe country�s labour force, namely, the Unorganised Sector.According to the Commission�s estimate, in 2004-5, totalemployment (principal plus subsidiary) in the Indianeconomy was 458 million, of which the unorganized sectoraccounted for 395 million, constituting 86 per cent of totalworkers. The Commission�s estimates showed that between1999-2000 and 2004-5, of the total incrementalemployment generated, only about 14 per cent wasabsorbed in the organized sector while 86 per cent wasabsorbed in the unorganized sector. Within theunorganized sector, wage workers [that is, those employedby others], constituted only 36% of the workers, and theremaining 64% were self-employed. Three major structuralfeatures of employment in the Indian economy highlightedby the Commission, therefore, are that first, the informalsector is hugely preponderant in the Indian economy,second, that the increases in employment have been of theinformal kind and third, that within the informal sector,there is a huge preponderance of self-employed workers.

The Commission has analyzed the educational statusof various groups of workers, that is, workers in theorganized and unorganized sectors, formally andinformally employed workers, by social and gender status,etc. In 2004-5 the share of 15 and above population whowere illiterate or below primary education comprised 47%.The share was higher among women (58%) and in ruralareas where more than 50% of population were illiterateand below primary. While 13 per cent of population hadprimary education, 16 per cent had middle level of

33

education. The share of educated persons that is thosewith secondary education and above was higher at 24%.The share of educated persons was higher as expectedamong men and in urban areas. The Commission has notedthat low levels of education and skills are one of the primaryreasons leading to a hierarchy of work relationships,segmentation of the workforce and vulnerability.

Using NSSO data from Round 2004-05 which collectedinformation about the skill profile of youth (15-19 yearspopulation), the Commission points out that only 11.5million of those in the age group 15-29 have received orwere receiving formal training while 22.3 million were beingtrained informally. 253.7 million received no training. Dataalso reveal significant differences in skill training by genderand urban/rural location; further and equally significantis the fact that only 2.1% of the youth population hadacquired (or was acquiring) formal skill training in ruralareas, in urban areas, this per centage was much higherat 7.3%.

Similar to the findings of the Planning CommissionTask Force Reports mentioned earlier, the NCEUS findsthat, across states, the pattern of skill acquisition variesquite considerably. The largest share of youth populationwith formal skills was in Kerala (15.5%), followed byMaharashtra (8.3%), Tamil Nadu (7.6%), HimachalPradesh (5.6%), and Gujarat (4.7%). The lowest incidenceof formal training was in Bihar (0.5%). Among those trainedor undergoing formal training, Maharashtra accounted for21.7% share. Kerala and Tamil Nadu had more than 10%share in the skilled youth population of population withformal skills. Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh too have arelatively higher share of skilled population in 15-29 agegroups. Thus, the Commission notes, the southern andwestern states form a continuous zone wherein the shareof population with formal skills is relatively higher andtogether the above six states account for 63% of formallytrained people. These are primarily states which either havemore industries, a higher level of education, and a higher

34

availability of training infrastructure and training capacityboth in the public and private sectors.

Again, similar to the Planning Commission Task ForceReports, the Commission has shown how low levels ofeducation and formal training have resulted in a majorityof workers being excluded from participating effectively indevelopment processes.World Bank Study on �Skill Development in India:The Vocational Education and Training System�,Human Development Unit, South Asia Region, (2008)

The above study makes some telling comments on thestate of vocational education and training in India. One,using NSSO data, the Report observes that, �there isgrowing demand for workers with secondary educationbut that the same cannot be said of workers with technical/vocational education or training. Since the early 1980s,the relative wages of workers with secondary educationhave been growing even as these workers have becomerelatively more abundant. However, the relative supply ofworkers with technical/vocational skills has declinedthroughout this period while their relative wages have alsocome down since the early 1990s�.

Two, the study finds that: �Labour market outcomesfor graduates of the training system are fairly poor. Eventhree years after graduation, over 60% of all graduatesremained unemployed. Although a significant proportionof apprentices find employment, close to two-thirds is notemployed in the trade for which they were trained � a thirdof these had been trained in obsolete trades. There appearto be three reasons for this: (a) limited growth and labourdemand in the manufacturing sector; (b) mismatch betweenskills attained and those actually in demand, and (c)mismatch between the skills taught and the graduates�own labour market objectives�.

Three, the study notes that, �these poor outcomes ariseowing to the public training system facing manyconstraints. These include the following: the managementof the system is fragmented. While different authorities have

35

clearly specified functions on paper, there is littlecoordination between them leading to diverseaccountability. Furthermore preoccupation with providingand financing training has resulted in governmentneglecting a key role � providing information about theavailability and effectiveness of training programmes.Institutions do not have incentives to improve theirperformance; Industry involvement in the vocationaltraining system is nascent�.

Four, unlike other Reports, the World Bank study hasengaged to some extent with the theme of interface ofvocational education/training with employers. Accordingto the study, skills rank below other constraints toproductivity among Indian firms. Indian employers rankfour other constraints as more important than �skills andeducation of available workers�. The top three constraintsare �tax rates�, �policy uncertainty� and �access to finance�.This, according to the study, may account for manufacturingestablishments in India providing less in-service formaltraining than the average for Europe, East Asia and LatinAmerica. To the study�s surprise, it finds that, in-servicetraining in India is also lower than other countries in theSouth Asia region. No more than 7% of employees receivedtraining in a given year and there are also significantvariations in the provision of training across states.

Five, �almost no attention is paid to using financing asan innovative means to encourage either good qualitypublic training, private training or as a way of providingincentives to enterprises to train their workers� Thefunding model used by the states is largely ineffective.Although the resources available to the states are limited,no state seems to follow a transparent funding formula infunding vocational education or training. Once aninstitution begins to receive funding, subsequent fundsare guaranteed irrespective of the institution�s performance.The same levels of finance are allocated to poorly performinginstitutions with high drop-out rates as to those thatmaintain a high quality of teaching and performance�.

36

Six, �there is little capacity in vocational education andeven that is under-utilised. MHRD�s original intention wasto place 25% of all grade 11-12 students into vocationalcourses by the year 2000. This has not happened. Only6800 schools have received grants and the total enrolmentreported is only about 5% at most. In fact this figure moreclosely approximates the capacity of schools to offervocational education rather than enrolments. More recentinformation suggests that the enrolment figure is less than3% of the students attending Grades 11-12� It wouldalso imply that less than one per cent of students who hadentered Grade 1 over the last decade or so would haveeventually participated in vocational education�.

Seven, �a survey of 55 enterprises by FICCI in late 2001assessed the quality and relevance of vocational/technicaltraining from an industry perspective. Close to 60% of therespondents felt that institutions were not geared to meetthe challenges of the global economy and over 43% feltthat academic institutions were not aligned to the needs ofindustry. 87% felt that institutions should have greaterexposure to industrial practices. They stressed theimportance of a collaborative approach between academiaand industry as a means of ensuring a better matchbetween what industry wants and what the institutionsproduce� Until recently, it had been hard to detect thehand of industry in the vocational training system� Therealso seems to be a lack of employer interest in theapprenticeship system. Regulations require public andprivate sector employers in designated industries to engageapprentices according to set ratios of apprentices to workersfor prescribed trades� despite the legislation, only 1900private establishments were registered for theApprenticeship Scheme in 2001; compared to some16,000 other establishments, essentially governmentagencies and enterprises. This lack of private sector interestcompares to the 250,000 establishments covered by theEmployees Provident Fund�.

37

Eight, �the quality of teachers appears to be poor. Aslightly dated survey conducted of over 262 ITI teachersin 14 states showed that 61% of teachers have less than12 years of schooling, and a third had no industrialexperience. Of those who had some industrial experience,a significant majority had less than two years experience.Furthermore, two-thirds of instructors had not receivedany training in the past five years�.

Revitalising Technical Education: Report of theReview Committee on AICTE (MHRD, 2003)

The Government of India, through a resolution passed on30 November 1945, set up the AICTE to supervise alltechnical education above the high school stage. TheCouncil consisted of representatives of the Ministries ofEducation, labour, Industry, and Commerce, the Inter-University Board, the Central Advisory Board of Education,the Association of Principals of Technical Institutions, theInstitution of Engineers, the Indian Legislature and theprovincial governments. As constituted, the AICTE was anadvisory body with no statutory powers; nevertheless, itplayed an important role in the development of technicaleducation in the country (p. 23). Significantly, while theexpansion of technical institutes in the fifties was donewith the approval of the AICTE and the Government ofIndia, the expansion in the eighties was localized mostlyin the four southern states and was primarily in the self-financing sector without the approval of the AICTE andthe Government of India (emphasis added, p. 23).

The National Policy on Education, 1986, made aspecific mention of the need to vest the AICTE with statutorypowers; accordingly, among other things, it laid down that:

(a) The AICTE will be vested with statutory authorityfor planning, formulation, and maintenance and standards,accreditation, funding of priority areas, monitoring andevaluation, maintaining parity of certification and awards,and ensuring the coordinated and integrated developmentof technical and management education (emphasis ours);and,

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(b) In the interest of maintaining standards and forseveral other valid reasons, the commercialisation ofprofessional and technical educations will be curbed (p.24).

In December 1987, the AICTE became a statutorybody through an Act of Parliament. Apart from setting upthe AICTE and providing it with statutory powers, theGovernment also came out with Technology PolicyStatements (most notably in 1958 and again in 2003)wherein it reiterated the central role of Science andTechnology �in raising the quality of life of the people ofthe country, particularly of the disadvantaged sections ofsociety, in creating wealth for all, in making India globallycompetitive�� (p. 34). The implementation plan of thesepolicies emphasized human resource development. Thus,for example, the Science and Technology Policy Statementof 2003 states: ��There is need to progressively increasethe rate of generation of high quality skilled humanresource at all levels�In order to encourage quality andproductivity in science and technology, mobility ofscientists and technologists between industry, academicinstitutions and research laboratories will be ensured�(emphasis added) (p. 35).

Viewing the development of technical education fromthe demand side, the Report offers the following perspectiveon the changing employment scenario since theenunciation of the first of the Technology Policy Statements:

In more than one place the report emphasises the pointthat, there has been a �rapid expansion of supply oftechnical personnel, far in excess of the absorptive capacityof the economy, leading to under-employment and evenunemployment of graduates and a deterioration of theirreal-income levels. It has also led to a degree ofsubstitution, whereby, in many cases, degree holdingengineers are taking up employment opportunities thatcould have gone to the diploma holders�Manufacturing,the traditional user of technical manpower, does not exhibitan ability to provide significantly expanded employment

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opportunities for technical persons. The growth of themanufacturing sector has been largely job-less, due to itslow employment elasticity, almost close to zero�Comparedto the past, employment opportunities would be moresensitive to the quality of the graduates. In aninternationally competitive environment, it is the qualityand not numbers that would matter. Graduates of sub-standard programmes and institutions will find itincreasingly harder to get employment even if they areprepared to sacrifice on the income level. Past pattern oflong term employment in a particular enterprise or evenin the same industry is beginning to break down. Abilityto keep up-to-date with changing knowledge and skillrequirements in the wake of frequent technologicalrestructuring and making significant lateral shifts andacross disciplines, would be crucial for remainingemployed. The implication for the technical educationalsystem is two-fold: [a] the pedagogy should focusrelatively more on the development of higher-order,generic, transferable skills and autonomous learningstrategies, and [b] more opportunities for non-formaleducation and training, continuing education and training,and distance education, should be offered by the system�(emphasis added) (p. 37-38).

We have dwelt at some length in reproducing the aboveobservations from the Report, since the current groundreality in terms of, on the one hand, (i) the unplanned andunregulated quantum leap in technical institutions thathave come up, (ii) the absolute shortage of technicalteachers, (iii) the low quality of teaching, (iv) the low levelsof formal coordination between educational institutes,industry, trade unions and the government (the latterthrough, say, the AICTE), and on the other, the inabilityof the economy to absorb the products of these institutes,makes us wonder whether there is a fundamental flaw inthe way we have comprehended (or not comprehended)the two broad institutions of �school� and �work�, with whichvocational/technical institution is intimately connectedand deeply embedded.

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It would be useful to engage with the numbers oftechnical institutes and personnel provided by the AICTEReport in order to get an idea of the dimensions of theproblem being considered by the Review Report. At onelevel, we are told that the number of Degree EngineeringColleges practically doubled in the decade 1980 to 1990,from around 158 institutions to over 337; during the nextdecade, 1990-2000, it increased from 337 to 776, threequarters of which were self-financed. As of 2003, there are1208 engineering colleges including 986 self-financinginstitutions with a total intake of over 3.5 lakh students.Equally spectacular has been the growth of MCA and MBAdegree institutions, which now stand at 1006 and 930respectively, with an intake of over 53000 and 64000students. At another level, data put out by the NationalTechnical Manpower Information System (NTMIS) revealthat considerable numbers of engineering graduatesremain unemployed even 2 years after completion of theirgraduation; current estimates indicate that theunemployment rate of engineering degree holders couldexceed 20 per cent (AICTE Report: 47). The story of thegrowth in PG institutions in engineering is similar.

Several aspects of the above growth in technicalinstitutions need to be explicated. One, data on region-wise and state-wise distribution of institutions, andsanctioned intake of students reveal the highly skewedgeographical distribution of institutions across the countrywith more than 52 per cent of the institutions being locatedin the South and South-West, whereas East and Northaccount for just around 7 per cent and 10 per centrespectively. Likewise 43 % of MBA institutions and 59per cent of MCA institutions with an intake of 35 per centand 57 per cent of students in the above disciplines are inthe South and South West, almost equal to the total numberof MBA and MCA institutions and their sanctioned intakein the entire region of the country covering Central, East,North and North-West region.

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Two, analysing the status of Faculty availability toimpart technical education to such levels of student intake,the AICTE Report records: �as of today, going strictlyaccording to the prescribed norms, there is shortfall of over26,000 Ph.Ds and 30,000 M.Techs for meeting theteaching requirements in the engineering institutions alone.Even if the teacher to student ratio is relaxed to 1:20, theshortfall in Ph.Ds and M. Techs should still be over 18,000and 20,000 M.Techs. The faculty position in otherdisciplines such as MCA, management education,pharmacy, architecture and town planning is as bad, ifnot worse�many of the private colleges, in particular,employ fresh graduates passing out of the college with poorgrades as teachers, thus totally compromising on thequality of teachers. It must be recognized that mediocrityin the teaching fraternity can only multiply mediocrity andcannot lead to the creation of excellence� (ibid: 77). Thelargest shortfall of teachers is in the southern region withTamil nadu alone accounting for almost 50 per cent of theshortfall (p. 76).

Three, a serious issue of concern recorded by the AICTEReport is one of accreditation. The AICTE has instituted anaccreditation programme to ensure quality education in allthe technical institutes under its purview. The AICTEestablished the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) asan autonomous body� accreditation is based on anassessment of the physical infrastructure, availability ofcompetent and qualified faculty, teaching learning processbeing followed, R&D work being carried out, placement ofstudents and other aspects of relevance. Accreditation bythe AICTE, follows the report of the expert committeemembers appointed to carry out the above task� �As onMay 2003, only 895 programmes from 202 institutions havebeen accredited as against a total of about 28,000programmes in 3589 accreditable institutions. Fifty-threeof these are Government-aided institutions (9.3%) out of atotal of 567 such institutions and the rest 149 are privateinstitutions (4.9%) out of a total of 3022� It is a matter of

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great concern to find that over 90% of technical andengineering graduates are studying in non-accreditedinstitutions� (p. 87).

A compounding problem flagged by the Report is theinability of most of these institutions to ensure evenminimum quality of education. �In Tamil Nadu whereexpansion has been greatest in recent years, in a recentsemester examination conducted by the Anna University,no student passed in 5 colleges, 28 had less than 5 percent passes, 78 had less than 10 per cent passes, 108 hadless than 15 per cent passes and only 17 had more than40 per cent passes, with only 8 having more than 50 percent passes� (ibid: 174).

Observations and Recommendations of the AICTEReview Report: A Discussion

Based on its mandate of reviewing the functioning ofthe AICTE and seized with the burning desire to revitalisetechnical education in the country, the Review Report hasmade certain very specific observations andrecommendations, that, in our opinion, if adopted, couldhave, far reaching social and political implications. Further,these observations and recommendations, when positedagainst the observations of the Reports of the PlanningCommission Task Forces, NCEUS and World Bank,immediately bring home the diametrically opposed natureof suggestions for action offered to the government by thedifferent Reports depending on the differing assumptions,understandings, and approaches to the theme andproblem of skill development of the Indian population.

One, the AICTE Review Committee recommends �amuch stricter control in giving further approvals to newinstitutions especially in the South, Southwest andWestern regions, to slow down further proliferation of suchinstitutions� even for a sustained economic growth rateof 8% per year, the country can at best support 4-5%growth in the technical personnel, as against the current15-20% annual growth in the intake of undergraduate

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technical students. The committee, therefore, stronglyrecommends that no further expansion of UG technicalinstitutions should be allowed and approvals for newinstitutions should be stopped for a period of at least 5years, in states where the intake for UG technical educationexceeds the national average of about 350 per millionpopulation. As expected, it is these states which have avery severe scarcity of qualified faculty, which justifies thesuggested bold step. This will not only improve the qualityof existing institutions by enabling the AICTE to providebetter support and prevent the social unrest that can ensuefrom unemployment of qualified technical personnel butalso indirectly assist in promoting the establishment ofquality institutions in areas/states suffering from severescarcity of technical institutions� (p. 47-52).

Two, the Committee notes: �It is increasingly clear thatthe organized sector in any country and particularly inIndia can only provide a limited number of jobs. Even thejob availability in the manufacturing industries is generallysmaller than the per centage of growth. The vast majorityof technical graduates have to find jobs either in the servicesector or preferably be trained to seek independent jobsand become entrepreneurs� The Committee believes thatthe Govt must make it mandatory for all industries,including small-scale industries, to employ qualifieddiploma holders or engineers for all technical jobs in orderto become competitive in the global market. The existingor presently employed personnel who do not have technicalqualifications must be sent for training by the industriesto enable them to acquire knowledge of the latest trendsand practices, of quality control and productiontechniques� (p.162).

Three, the Committee�s solution to the growingmismatch between �what the economy can support andwhat has been sanctioned by the AICTE�, is to �conduct asystematic study to determine the numbers that will bereasonable for intake into technical education�.

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Four, the Committee observes that: �So far, the AICTEhas left the issue of quantitative expansion to market forces,and permitted unchecked growth without reference to theactual manpower requirements of the country. Takingadvantage of the large demand from students, and ignoringthe realities of economic conditions, many over enthusiastic[and some unscrupulous] entrepreneurs have overexpanded technical education. Hence the AICTE shouldshrink excess flab in technical institutions in a relativelypainless manner by insisting that student admissionsshould be strictly to the number that can be handled bythe available faculty and no more. The AICTE should evenclose institutions, which are not up to minimumstandards� (p.173).

It is immediately clear from the above that, while theAICTE Review Committee has provided important andthought provoking details of the pattern of quantitativegrowth of technical education in the country, and alsohighlighted the nature of problems afflicting this growthin terms of (a) the lopsided nature of geographicaldevelopment of technical education institutes, (b) the severeshortage of qualified faculty, and (c) the unaccreditablenature of growth of institutes � all of which compromisequality of technical education provided, yet, therecommendation of the Review Committee to place amoratorium on expansion of technical educationinstitutions, among others, is unacceptable, not onlybecause of its politically explosive overtone but also, moreimportantly, from the point of view of achieving sociallyjust economic development. As the Reports of the PlanningCommission Task Forces, NCEUS and World Bank havepointed out, the per centage and levels of formally trainedtechnical population/workforce in this country isunacceptably low, the uneven nature of growth regionally,notwithstanding. These Reports have also provided datathat, in different ways, unambiguously depict howsegmentation of the workforce and hierarchy of work

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relationships take place because of low levels of educationand skills.

The problems of shortage of qualified faculty, oflopsided geographical spread of technical educationinstitutes, poor performance of students, etc alluded to bythe AICTE Review Report are systemic in nature; each ofwhich either individually or taken together does notwarrant that a moratorium be placed on further expansionof technical education institutions.

However, an important problem flagged by the AICTEReview Report largely because of which it hasrecommended putting on hold further expansion intechnical education institutes, is the inability of the growingIndian economy to absorb those passing out of theseinstitutions. In a different way the AICTE Review Reportechoes the point made by all other Reports, namely, thegross inability of the Indian economy to generate formalemployment. What is problematic about the manner inwhich this observation is made is the manner in which allof the Reports seem to take this phenomenon, namely, thatof the economy�s inability to generate formal employment,as given. In fact, the AICTE Review Report goes furtherand laments that had the country made proper use of thedata generated by the National Technical ManpowerInformation System (despite all its limitations) �for realdecision-making�, the country could have avoidedinvestment in such large numbers of technical educationalinstitutions and thereby the numbers of educatedunemployed could have been considerably reduced.

The concern of the AICTE Review Committee beginsand ends with analysing the growth and expansion oftechnical education institutions in the country. There isno attempt to situate this growth within the larger contextof the developments in the educational sector over time(wherein, with economic development, larger numberswould be going in for higher/technical/vocationaleducation in their quest for formal degrees to be able toaccess formal employment); there is also no attempt to

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relate this growth to the need of a growing and diversifyingeconomy for skilled personnel. This inability of the AICTEReview Report to contextualise its findings andobservations makes it unable to expand the scope of itsreview to grapple with the issue of why the economy is notable to absorb even the miniscule numbers of formallytrained technical personnel.

In addition, Section 10(e) of the AICTE Act stipulatesthat it shall be the duty of the AICTE to �formulate schemesfor promoting technical education for women, handicappedand weaker sections of society�. On this, the ReviewCommittee merely notes: �In so far as the mandate of theCouncil for formulating schemes for women, and physicallydisabled is concerned, the AICTE has not evolved anyseparate scheme except for providing some relaxation inage limit under the scheme of Career Award for YoungTeachers and in Project and Travel Grant Schemes. In sofar as schemes for promoting technical education for weakersections of the society are concerned no specific schemeshave been formulated by the Council�(p. 71). In itsrecommendations, the Review Committee is content tosuggest that disaggregated data be collected by AICTEseparately for male and female enrolment in variousdisciplines, that AICTE conduct studies to ascertain theproblems faced by women, the handicapped and theweaker sections of society regarding access to technicaleducation and subsequent employment, and also addressthe problem of lack of accommodation for women studentsin all institutions.

Issues for Discussion

If none of the Reports deem it their responsibility ormandate to engage with and/or examine the theme of whythe Indian state�s paradigm of development is unable togenerate formal employment of the quantum and kind thatwill enable larger numbers of formally trained personnelto be employed, it is not clear why any of these Reports

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should be concerned with the quantity, quality and skilllevel of the working population and particularly of the vastmajority condemned to work in the unorganised sector.

Having stated the above, it is important to take note ofthe implications of several of the observations in the Reportsdiscussed above.

One, the NCEUS, in its drive towards formalising theinformal/unorganized sector, not only makes a case forexpanding general education given the present abysmallevels of education of bulk of the general and workingpopulation; more significant, the NCEUS asserts that theskills necessary for the unorganized sector should be�formally� provided. Formal provision, according to theNCEUS would involve the processes of accreditation,certification and standardization. The World Bank studygoes further and notes that the lack of evaluative evidenceon the impact of vocational education or training makes itdifficult to make informed decisions on the effectiveness ofsuch programmes, even if these were to be �formally�provided. Hence the need, according to the World-bankstudy, �to define transparent criteria that are easilymeasured but not easily manipulated�(x).

Two, unlike the NCEUS, the World Bank study and toa limited extent the AICTE Review Committee bemoansthe lack of employer participation in skill developmentprogrammes. In fact the World Bank study puts it forcefullythus: �Critical to the success of any reform in publictraining system is buy-in from employers and theirparticipation in decision making not only at the nationaland state levels but also at the institutional level� (v). It isimportant to engage with the nature of industryinvolvement in training substantively so that issues ofstandard setting and overall process of certification ofcourses, contents, and performance evaluation of studentsare linked and work within a framework agreed upon bygovernment as facilitator and industry as implementer.

Three, the World Bank study and the AICTE ReviewReport have flagged the issue of poor quality of teachers

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and teaching in most vocational training/educationinstitutions. A major obstacle identified is the way traininginstitutions are governed. Most vocational traininginstitutions are part of the government and thereforeteachers and trainers are civil servants, while resourcesare part of the government budget. The space for innovation,experimentation, so crucial for improving performance arepractically nil in such a set-up.

Four, except the AICTE Review Report, all otherReports clearly demonstrate the miniscule scale of theinstitutional set-up for vocational education and trainingin India, and the low level of in-service training provided.

Despite the different entry points of each of the reports,a common theme that emerges is that the theme ofvocational education/training/skill development has to beaddressed forthwith howsoever intractable the problemmay seem to be. What our engagement with each of thesereports individually and collectively seems to suggest isthat evolving a framework to address the theme in all itscomplexity seems more intractable than the problem itself.A major reason for the growing frustration on this issuecould also be the assumption with which almost all reportsbegin and that is, that the ability of the economy, aspresently constituted, to generate quality employment islimited or nil. Any attempt at resolving this issue willnecessarily have to begin by examining why the Indianeconomy cannot be made to generate quality employmentfor its citizens. The reason for emphasizing the need tofrontally confront this development paradigm that is notgeared towards formal employment generation is also tounderscore the point that merely increasing the base offormally provided vocational education/training will notby itself serve the purpose of enabling larger numbers toparticipate in development processes. While broad-basingvocational education/training is necessary, for the causeof social justice to be sufficiently and effectively served,the material base needs also to be expandedsimultaneously.

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PART 2

Perspectives from the Ground

Tamil Nadu is generally perceived as one of the well-developed and fast growing states of the country, whichperception has enabled the state to attract considerableamounts of investment (foreign and domestic).Nevertheless, the conventional notion that growth poweredby the secondary and tertiary sectors would generatesufficient decent employment so as to absorb the emergingliterate population as well as the surplus labour from theprimary sector, that is the agricultural sector, has not takenplace; on the contrary, the primary sector continues tomaintain its rank as the largest employer of the rural peopleeven as income from the primary sector has declined overtime. While, as mentioned above, on several parameters,the state of Tamil Nadu has performed better than theaverage for the country as a whole, it was imperative thatan examination of whether, and, if so, how, better [thanthe national] indicators of growth had been operationalizedon the ground to transform for the better the lives of thepoor and marginalized in particular. The visits to twelvevillages that we undertook in 2004 as part of the LivelihoodAssessment Survey (IDA, 2004) provided us anopportunity for such an examination. It gave ustremendous insights into the dynamics of the functioningof the village societies as well as the manner in whichinternal/external factors either jointly or individuallyimpact on the lives of different segments of the populationin the villages, and of the men and women of these segmentsin particular. Some of the key questions that we set out toexplore (from a gender perspective) included: thecharacteristics of deprivation faced by women and girls incomparison to men and boys among the poorer sectionsof the village population; the specific ways in whichhouseholds and women in particular slip into poverty and/or continue to remain vulnerable; how have government

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interventions aimed at alleviating poverty and/orempowering women impacted on the lives of the villagersand the village community; and, how do women inparticular view the changes that have occurred over theirlifetime. What follows is a consolidated summary of ourfindings based on discussions that we have had withseveral sets of women in each of these villages.

At the outset, it needs to be recorded, that, across thevillages, and among almost all sections of the agriculturallabouring population, the risk and therefore vulnerabilitydue to declining agricultural activities (the most importantsource of livelihood for those with land as well as for thosewithout land) has increased considerably. The villagers ingeneral, women included, traced the decline in agriculturalactivities to a combination of factors: continuous failure ofmonsoons, depletion of ground water, change in croppingpatterns, changes in institutional patterns that governagrarian relations, etc., all of which has combined to erodethe livelihood base of much of the agriculture-dependentpopulation. Public intervention programmes by their verydesign and nature has been singularly ineffective inaddressing regressive agrarian structural factors, caste forexample, and has more often than not contributed toproblems rather than to solutions.

A direct economic consequence of this combination offactors is the decline in the number of days of employment,hitting hard the landless agricultural labouring populationin particular. Most villages have no other major activitythat can provide alternate employment (and therefore somesource of income) to the erstwhile labour employed inagriculture. Because of this dip in their major source ofincome, the landless households among the agricultureemployment-based groups are the most vulnerable sincethey have nothing to fall back upon. Consequently, thesehouseholds are forced to cope by cutting down the numberof meals they take in a day, discontinue schooling of theirchildren, delay seeking medical attention for their ailments,default on repayment schedules on their loans, and/or

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become more indebted, thereby further increasing theirvulnerability. The one significant point that was uniformlystressed was the tremendous increase in vulnerability thatpoorer sections of the landless agricultural populationfaced due to the erosion of their main source of income,namely, paddy cultivation. The non-availability of alternatesources of income to compensate for the above erosionenhances the risk that these sections face on a day-to-daybasis. The gender question that emerges here is thedifferential impact that this vulnerability holds for men andwomen: while to some extent men venture out in search ofcoolie work, at times even staying out for days together,such options are not available to women. They have neitherthe resources nor the support system to enable them tomake these search trips. At the same time, we need to stressthat a resolution to this gender problem does not lie only[or not even] in enabling women to go out in search of cooliework, but in addressing the larger question of the erosionin the main source of livelihood of these populations.

Fall in and/or lack of income has other adverse fallouts.For example, women in one village pointed out that allchildren were not in school and further that there wasconsiderable dropout at the middle and higher levels forone or several of the following reasons: deteriorating incomestandards meant that they were forced to pull out theirchildren from classes that did not serve noon-meals andalso because they could not meet other school-relatedexpenditure such as travel (since for classes beyond 8th

standard the children have to travel outside the village),and notebooks. In some cases older children had todiscontinue schooling in order to share householdresponsibilities while their parents went out in search ofwork. In quite a few villages, girls� education wasconstrained by the fact that the only school in the villagehad classes only upto the 8th standard. Thereafter theparents would have to invest resources in travel and otherexpenses to enable their daughters to pursue their studiesfurther. A combination of limited income as well as poor

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transport meant that, while parents expressed theirwillingness and desire to educate their daughters further,they could not translate this desire in practice. Hence,beyond the 8th standard, the gender gap in educationallevel becomes stark.

Another dimension of the gendered nature of theproblem relating to education is the following: in almostall villages women clearly expressed the point that, whilethey were happy that some among their village children,girls as well as boys, had managed to study up to the 12th

standard, they were very aware of the futility of being�educated� only up to the 12th. One, it was pointed out that,pursuing education beyond the 12th was expensive evenin government higher educational institutions and also attimes non-accessible (because of non-fulfillment ofeligibility criteria by these children). Not all could afford toeducate all their children; forced to make a choice, theparents opted to expend on higher education and hostelaccommodation for their boys rather than for girls. Theparents had a reason for this gendered choice:opportunities for employment outside of the ones availablein the village, namely, agriculture, was nil, unless the�educated� chose to go to large metros and towns. While infact a few boys from these villages have found some servicejobs in metros like Chennai (like lorry booking, cleanerjobs with transport companies, etc), similarly �educated�girls were handicapped by lack of social support andeconomic opportunities, and were therefore confined totheir households. Villages close to metros such as Chennaiwere sourced for adolescent girl labour to work in garmentunits particularly in the Export Processing Zone; the latterorganised pick up and drop services for such labour butmost villagers were reluctant to send their daughters tothese units.

All sections of the population were extremely anxiousabout the uncertainty facing their children, educated orotherwise. Their hopes of a better future for their childrenwere shattered because of their realisation that the children

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had no future either in the �traditional� occupation, that isagriculture (which was declining), or in �modern�occupations; the latter required more and different kind ofqualifications that the village population could, as of now,ill afford. Women were frustrated that their work and levelsof earnings were not sufficient to enable their children riseabove a certain level of education and/or acquire any formof professional skill. This in turn implied that they couldnot get in to better paying jobs � a necessary condition forreducing the intensity of insecurity of their lives and veryexistence.

While the nature of problems encountered by adivasivillages in hill areas were similar, in such areas thetopography of the area further compounded the problemof access to services like education and health.Conventional solutions that generally mark all governmentintervention programmes were neither suitable nor viablefor such locales.

Women and young girls, in almost all the villages wevisited, were very critical of the poor communicationfacilities in their villages, since more than for men and boys,lack of crucial infrastructure facilities reduced their optionsin several ways. While some problems such as decline inemployment opportunities, limited access to higher levelsof education particularly for girls because of poor transportconnectivity, etc., cut across classes and castes within thevillage, quite a few problems were specific to particularclasses and castes depending on their endowments andlocation within the village. For example, in one village, theSC women had been provided with �houses� under thegovernment�s Group Housing scheme for SCs but the entiresegment had no electricity. (Most parts of the rest of thevillage had electricity). Besides, in this and in most othervillages we found these group houses to be of extreme poorquality � leaking and falling apart � particularly in all thosecases where the inmates had not been able to pay adequatebribes. In most hill areas most group houses remainedempty for the simple reason the hill people found them

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totally unsuited for their weather. Given the inability ofthe government to change its stipulation of materials anddesign according to the topography and living patternsof people, it is not surprising that well intended schemesof government have failed to make the expected impacts.

The physical location of a Christian Dalit colony in oneof the villages, about 3 kms away from the main village,had contributed in no small measure to the colony peoplebeing deprived or poorly serviced by otherwise functioningpublic institutions located within the main village. Thecolony people felt that not only their location but also thefact that they had converted themselves to Christianity hadworked against them since, because of this religiousconversion, they were not able to access facilities otherwisedue to Dalits. The ration shop was located in the mainvillage; officially supplies to the entire village, whichincluded the colony, was downloaded and accounted forin the main village. Despite repeated requests, thepanchayat president had not been able to put in place asystem whereby supplies meant for this colony could bedelivered in the colony itself. Similarly, the balwadi for thevillage was located in the main village. Supplies meant forthe children and pregnant/lactating mothers of the DalitChristian colony were deposited in the main village.However, it was physically not possible for the childrenand pregnant women of the colony to travel 3 kms on aday-to-day basis to the main village to access thesesupplies.

Another dimension of the different perspectives andemphasis expressed within a village had to do with theclass status of the population. Thus for example, thewomen of the main landowning class of a village felt thatthe prime institution that needed to deliver quality servicewas the school in their village. According to them whiletheir village had a functioning school where education wasprovided up to the 12th standard, where the Panchayathas ensured that teachers come to the school on a regularbasis, where the school itself was well endowed in terms of

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classrooms and playground, where noon meals, text andnote books were provided, etc., nevertheless, there werespecific problems such as lack of teachers with specialisedqualifications, such as mathematics and science. Thisdeficiency was beginning to impact adversely on theirchildren in that the latter were not able to cope in thesesubjects in competitive examinations, which in turndeprived these children of seats in institutions of higherlearning.

Across all villages and among all sections of thepopulation, including women, the need to generateemployment and provide households with a fairly steadysource of income, was the prime demand. The erosion oftheir basic livelihood, namely agriculture, combined withpoor access to alternate sources of livelihood, namely,construction activity, brick-kiln work and the like, hadrendered households vulnerable apart from increasingsurvival risks.

�Development�, symbolised by public interventions inthe fields of education, health, basic infrastructure suchas drinking water and electricity, and through publicinstitutions such as PDS, Balwadi, SHG, etc., had mitigatedto some extent the severity of the crises caused by loss oflivelihood. But the impacts of these interventions had beenquite uneven across villages and across classes and casteswithin villages.

The women were very vociferous in stating that theydid not require to be told of the importance of educatingtheir children; their anxiety was the futility of educatingtheir children upto the primary, secondary or even highersecondary � none of which could fetch their children anyjob. For �educated� girls the scenario was even morepathetic since whatever their level of education, in theabsence of social and economic support their mobility wasrestricted, unlike the boys, some of whom could ventureoutside the village in search of low level service jobs suchas cleaners, etc. Further, women and girls wanted skill-based training/education for themselves. The SC womenin particular in quite a few villages were frustrated that

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despite being SCs, and despite being aware that SCs havereservation in jobs in all government and government-aided institutions, they were not able to source any reservedpost in any establishment.

In almost all villages the women in particular wantedtransport and road infrastructure to be improvedsubstantially. Particularly in those villages that were closeto cities and towns, the women felt handicapped by poorfrequency of bus services and/or bad roads, which madeit difficult for them to seek work in these towns and cities.

During the discussions on the quantum, nature andadequacy of government�s welfare policies aimed atdifferent categories of people such as the poor, women,disabled, widows, destitute, girl children, pregnant women,etc., the women were very emphatic that, while throughtheir local bodies and/or SHGs they did source the differentprogrammes and very often also ensured that the targetedpopulation benefited from the welfare schemes, these adhoc �schemes� did not address the two hard questions thatthey posed: one, restoration of the source of their livelihood,and two, when, how and what would enable their childrento make a transition to a better source of livelihood andlife since their present levels of education had failed todo so. These questions made us re-examine the rationaleof our �social sector/welfare policies� and its relationshipto �economic development�.

By Way of Conclusion

We began our study by recapitulating our earlier work that�interrogated� development through a disaggregation of macrodata on education and employment � sex, caste and region-wise in order to enable us to measure change (statistically)by examining available data post-1991. Our analyses ofofficial data since 1991 reveals that while significant strideshave been taken to close gaps across caste, region and genderas far as literacy is concerned, formal levels of education ofthe population in general and of female worker populationin particular continue to remain dismal.

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Our discussion of Reports of Officially constitutedCommittees and Commissions in different ways confirm thestatistical disjuncture that we observed between educationand employment apart from elaborating on the dismal stateof vocational education and skill development of the Indianpopulation. In the course of our critical examination of theseOfficial Reports we emphasised the one common threadrunning through these Reports, namely, the fact that theseReports have taken as given the inability of the Indianeconomy to generate formal/quality employment.

Our field-based observations discussed in Part 2 abovebrought out the anxieties of people on the ground whoclearly articulated the fact that their current levels of incomeand/or the educational levels of their children was totallyinadequate to enable them to make a transition to a betterlife. They were also vociferous in stating that ad hoc welfareschemes were not just insufficient but also divertedattention from hard macro decisions that needed to betaken.

In other words, what data, official reports and the field-based observations reveal are problems and inequities thatare structural in nature, and, those which cannot be rectifiedby addressing individuals or even individual households.There is almost nothing in any of our existing operationalpublic policies that can or is actually being used to tacklethe systemic nature of the class, gender and caste-basedsocial and economic discrimination outlined above. And yet,unless such structural inequities are confronted frontally,their entrenched nature will render them more resistant tochange.

Not only has the country not been able to address basicissues like universal access to education and/or implementexisting labour laws (not to mention the gross inadequateattention to infrastructure like fuel, water and sanitation),but worse, with changing macro-economic conditions,existing distortions are deepening while hitherto dormantones are surfacing. With rising aspirations (due also to alarge measure because of increasing awareness), the

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perception of violence and injustice of the current�development� paradigm is also high among vast sections ofthe population including women and the scheduled castes.There is therefore no excuse for the state not to take its owndata and the recommendations of its own Committees andCommissions seriously.

End Notes

1 The �Livelihood Assessment Survey� undertaken in 2004 was partof the preparation for the World Bank�s �Tamilnadu Empowermentand Poverty Reduction Programme�. The surveycovered 3864 households and a population of 16325 individualsspread over eleven villages in ten districts of the state. Three ofthese eleven villages are tribal villages. Forty per cent of the surveyedpopulation is from the scheduled caste community, seventeen percent from scheduled tribes� community and the rest from �others�.The male-female break-up of the surveyed population is 50.5 and49.5 per cent respectively. Nearly 15 per cent of the surveyedhouseholds are female-headed households.

2 Despite the fact that the nation was assured that Census datacollected in 2001 would be made available in quick time because ofthe availability and access to state-of-the-art IT infrastructure,considerable amounts and crucial aspects of the data collected haveyet to become accessible. Hence in this paper it has not been possibleto undertake the level and depth of analysis done earlier (using the1991 census data) in the paper published in the 2002 volumementioned in the text.

3 What constitutes �quality� is highly problematic. However, rather thangetting in to a philosophical discussion of the term, which wouldtake us away from the purpose of our paper, we have described�quality employment� to indicate broadly the terms and conditions ofemployment; specifically, it refers to the adequacy of wages paid toparticular kinds of employment and the environment in which suchworks have to be carried out. Thus for example, rising incidence ofunemployment among educated youth would indicate not just lackof employment opportunities, but also lack of acceptable (in termsof wages, nature of job (manual or otherwise) and conditions inwhich these jobs have to be performed) opportunities, as perceivedby those choosing to remain unemployed.

4 See for example, the following; (i) K N Panikkar, 2001, �WhitherIndian Education�, Inaugural address to the �National ConventionAgainst Communalization of Education in India�, organized by

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SAHMAT, August 4-6, New Delhi, India. Available on net; (ii) VijenderSharma, 2002, �WTO, GATS, and Future of Higher Education inIndia�, People�s Democracy (Weekly Organ of the Communist Partyof India, Marxist), Volume 26, Nos. 6, 7, and 8, February 10, 17,and 24, 2002. Available on net; (iii) The Tribune, 2002, �Teachers�panel opposes report�, newspaper from Chandigarh, India, March2, p. 5. Available on net.

5 The first Committee, chaired by Montek Singh Ahluwalia, submittedits Report in July 2001. It went by the name of Task Force onEmployment Opportunities. The second committee, chaired by Dr.S P Gupta, submitted its Report in May 2002. This committee wascalled the Special Group On Targeting 10 million EmploymentOpportunities.

6 The National Sample Survey Organization [NSSO] of India collectsdetailed information on the employment status of the population throughlarge-scale, nation-wide sample surveys in which individuals arecategorised as employed or available for work but not employed,using different criteria. Rates are calculated as per centages of thetotal labor force. The NSSO provides four different measures ofemployment and unemployment, each of which captures differentfacets of the employment-unemployment situation. One of these isthe Current Daily Status (CDS). Based on the reported time dispositionof the person on each day of the reference week, person-days inemployment (unemployment) are aggregated to generate estimates ofperson-days in employment/unemployment. The person-dayunemployment rate is derived as the ratio of person-days inunemployment to the person-days in the labor force. This measurecaptures the within-week unemployment of those classified asemployed on the Weekly Status. The CDS-measure of unemploymentis widely agreed to be the one that most fully captures openunemployment in the country )Planning Commission, 2001: 15-16).

7 Both the Planning Commission Reports give a large number of tablescontaining state-wise data relating to the nature of employmentgenerated, the level of unemployment disaggregatedby sex, age and level of education.

8 For a description of what constitutes formal vocational education inIndia see, India, Planning Commission, Report of the Task Force onEmployment Opportunities, New Delhi, July 2001, p.129.

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ReferencesAmbani, M and Birla Kumaramangalam. 2000. A Policy Framework forReforms in Education. Report presented to the Prime Minister�s Councilon Trade and Industry, New Delhi, downloaded from net.

Bennell, P. and Segerstrom, J. 1998. Vocational Education and Trainingin Developing Countries. Has the World Bank Got it right? InternationalJournal of Educational Development, Vol.18, No.4, pp. 271-287.

Geetha Rani, P, 2002. Financing Higher Education in India in the PostReform Period: Focus on Access and Equity, Occasional Paper, No. 31,National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi,September, p. 2.

India, Government of. 2001. Report of the Task Force on EmploymentOpportunities, Planning Commission, New Delhi, July

India, Government of. 2002. Special Group on Targeting Ten MillionEmployment Opportunities Per Year, Planning Commission, New Delhi,May

India, Government of, 2003. Revitalising Technical Education: Report ofthe Review Committee on AICTE, Ministry of Human ResourceDevelopment, New Delhi, September

India, Government of, National Commission for Enterprises in theUnorganised Sector. 2008. Report on Conditions of Work and Promotionof Livelihoods in the Unorganised Sector, Academic Foundation, NewDelhi

Institute of Development Alternatives. 2004. Livelihood AssessmentReport, Chennai, December [unpublished]

Ravi Kumar, T and Vijender Sharma, 2003. Downsising Higher Education:An Emergent Crisis, Economic and Political Weekly, Volume 38, No. 7,February 15-21, pp. 603-607.

Swaminathan, Padmini. 2002. The Violence of Gender-BiasedDevelopment: Going beyond Social and Demographic Indicators, in KarinKapadia [edited], The Violence of Development: The Politics of Identity,Gender and Social Inequalities in India, Kali For Women, New Delhi,

Swaminathan, Padmini, 2005. Making Sense of Vocational EducationalPolicies: A Comparative Assessment, Indian Journal of Labour Economics,Volume 48, No. 3, July-September

Swaminathan, Padmini. 2007. The Interface Between Employment andEducation: The Need for a Discourse, in Krishna Kumar and JoachimOesterheld (edited), Education and Social Change in South Asia, OrientLongman

World Bank. 1993. The East Asian Miracle, Oxford University Press,New York

World Bank. 2008. Skill Development in India: The Vocational Educationand Training System, Human Development Unit, South Asia Region, January.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Professor Padmini Swaminathan is currently holding theReserve Bank of India Chair in Regional Economics at theMadras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, TamilNadu, India.

Professor Swaminathan specialised in Economics (Main)and Political Science (Subsidiary) for her BA degree and thenwent on to specialize in Economics for her MA Degree.Immediately after MA, Professor Swaminathan taughtEconomics for two years at St. Xavier�s College, Bombay. Shereceived her doctorate in Industrial Economics from theUniversity of Bombay in 1982. The doctoral thesis examinedthe functioning of the Monopolies and Restrictive TradePractices Act in the context of Product Concentration inIndian Industry. Professor Swaminathan relocated toChennai and joined the Madras Institute of DevelopmentStudies in 1982.

At the Madras Institute of Development Studies, a SocialScience Research Institute under the aegis of the IndianCouncil of Social Science Research, New Delhi, ProfessorSwaminathan has been able to broad-base and provide amulti-disciplinary focus to development research. Herresearch interests now cover and explore the linkagesbetween the themes of industrial organization, labour,education and health � all from a gender perspective. Theemphasis on exploring and highlighting linkages betweenseemingly different academic topics and/or disciplines hasenabled Professor Swaminathan to establish, for example,the connection between industrial organisation, employmentof labour, educational and skill level of the labour employed,and, conditions under which labour, particularly womenlabour, is employed. Similarly, Professor Swaminathan�sresearch also highlights the adverse health outcomes ofincreasing informalisation of work whether employed in

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formal or informal units. Professor Swaminathan�spublications in a wide range of development journals reflectvery much the diversity of her research explorations.

As Director of the Madras Institute of DevelopmentStudies, Professor Swaminathan was able to streamline andprovide a structure to the Institute�s Ph.D programme andin bringing together faculty to provide a collective focus tothe institute�s academic activities. Professor Swaminathanactively serves on the Editorial Boards of several academicjournals; from time to time, her services are also requisitionedby Provincial and Central Government Bodies such as theTamil Nadu State Statistical Committee and the High Courtof Madras.

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APPENDIX

Tables 1 - 12