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The Directorate of Vocational Education and Training (DVET) has been directed to seek and apply for affiliation of Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) to the Director General of Training (DGET) by end of March 2017. This move has been made owing to the fact that around 12000 seats remained vacant in skill development courses in 2016 across government run ITI’s as well as private run ITI’s in India.
Skill Development courses like carpentry, plumbing and other craftsmen training have taken a nosedive in the last couple of years. In spite of remaining vacant, about 2 Lakh students looking for admission to ITI course were unable to secure admission. This is largely due to manhandling of the seats and infrastructure facilities. In this sad state of events, about 40, 000 seats in the existing ITIs may be scrapped in 2017 if Maharashtra fails to get affiliations for some if its ITI divisions.
Also Read: Information on AICTE Approved Vocational Courses Provided by MoS HRD
As of November 2016, according to the Mahajan Commission that looks into anomalies in vocational training institutes in India, about 1729 divisions in several vocational and professional courses remain unaffiliated to the DGET. Now since the DGET has been given the responsibility to implement programs pertaining to vocational training, grant affiliations etc., on the availability of infrastructure & teachers, they are not able to assess the availability of the existing mechanism to be able to diagnose and provide an apt solution to the problems faced by ITIs in India. The Mahajan Committee discovered that 54, 053 expensive machines were unused in Maharashtra following the closure of around 5500 ITIs in the past 6 – 8 years. The value of these machines was estimated at crores.
The reason for unused of these machines as per an official from DVET included:
- More than 5612 divisions had closed shop due to unused
- Unaccounted divisions were added without any foresight of these courses
Addressing the issue, Director-in-Charge DVET, Dayanand Meshra said, “...Not many of these institutes have the required machinery for teaching the courses they offer. Hence we plan to move the machinery from institutes where they are not needed to the ones where there is requirement”.
The DVET has further proposed to form an accumulative inventory of the infrastructure & machines in the ITI’s, which has already been vetted by the government of Maharashtra. However. The flaw in DVET’s proposal is that they have not mentioned any budgetary provision for the movement of the heavy-duty equipment from one region to another yet. DVET is soon to provide the budget estimation soon and present it to the Ministry.
Not only logistics but in the event of closure or transfer of the machinery, the future of teaching posts in unaffiliated divisions remain in jeopardy. As per the Mahajan Committee report, close to 44, 959 teaching posts will be scrapped the government regularises contractual teaching posts in these unaffiliated divisions.
Also Read: Vocational Education and Training in India
The Maharashtra state government has now proposed that 390 posts be filled and utilised properly and the 334 posts sanctioned for regularisation be continued on a contractual basis.
The main problem with this system is that in spite of the discrepancy faced by vocational courses in ITIs, the Maharashtra state government encouraged students who were unable to clear the Class X examination to enrol into special vocational training courses through the Kaushalya Setu programme.
Also Read: Reports Reveal Rising Demand of Vocational Courses in Maharashtra
This gap has cost the DVET dearly because only 60% of the facilities provided in ITIs are currently being used effectively. The DVET has now been instructed to analyse the demand of vocational courses and the courses that are currently being offered by private institutions so that new proposals can be made accordingly.
