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www.thesmartmanager.comT h e S m a r T m a n a g e r Sep-Oct 10

S m a r T e n T e r P r I S e

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skills are for everby Sanjay Shivnani (In conversation with Tanmoy Goswami)

Since the emergence of technocracies as power-brokers in the globalized economic order, perhaps no other word has gone through so many shifts in meaning and significance as ‘skill’. The concept of skill within the broader framework of knowledge tends to obsolesce itself faster than we can notice—simply think of the number of professions that have disappeared into nostalgia in the last decade. The need for a dynamic skills training environment that can help people upgrade their capabilities and convert skills into employment has never been more pressing.

in India, this need is rendered more vital by a booming youth population that is seen as our big hope

in the economic leadership race. But how realistic is our hope? We produce graduates in astronomical numbers, but far from

reassuring us, this is fast turning into an Achilles’ heel in the absence of result-oriented vocational training programs. The government

runs thousands of Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and Industrial Training Centres (ITCs), but the lack of job creation and a robust

delivery platform tend to throw a spanner in the works. In brief – a large part of our educated youth is unemployable.

This is where Career Launcher (CL) steps in – though strictly speaking, it need not. A household name in much of young India on

the back of its reputation in the MBA test prep business, CL’s Skill School initiative now touches thousands of below poverty line,

tribal, rural and urban youth, training them in trades as diverse as diesel engine maintenance, marketing and sales and computer-

based accounting. It also provides personality development training to these youth, many of whom could not even dream of two

square meals a day, based on its belief that a confident handshake often works better than a well-made weld.

Apart from working with corporate partners to ensure job creation, CL is also working as a pace-setter in the nascent public-

private partnership (PPP) segment in the country. They have adopted 21 ITIs across six states, and their campaigns have seen

them work closely with village panchayats and block authorities. The result is a unique form of social entrepreneurship that cuts

through cynicism by putting skills firmly back in the knowledge game.

www.thesmartmanager.com30T h e S m a r T m a n a g e r Sep-Oct 10

S K I L L S a r e F O r e V e r by Sanjay Shivnani

individual is able to achieve her aspirations and make her

dreams come true. Within this larger goal, the field that CL

plays in is education. CL has been the pioneer of the test prep

industry in this country; we started this way back in 1995. As

our brand started building itself and propagating its virtues,

we realized that we could extend this franchise across other

segments of the education pie. A few years ago, CL started

its own school chain christened Indus World School; the first

one being in Hyderabad on a sprawling campus with world-

class facilities. So, CL had entered mainstream education,

and that was stretched further to higher education with our

first bschool called Indus World School of Business at Greater

Noida in the National Capital Region. And thus, step by

step, we started extending our footprint into the education

sector. Finally, we realized that education allows core-sector

companies like CL, which have a strong core purpose and a

committed team, to pursue the larger goal of inclusiveness and

contribute to nation building. We internalized the compelling

argument that education must be democratized; that we must

reach out to the masses and make a difference. That is India’s

only escape to victory and global leadership.

Simultaneously, the Government of India (GoI) was

espousing the human capital opportunity that resides within

India. A few years ago, India’s population was its biggest

nightmare; today it is probably India’s only engine for global

dominance. If the GoI executes as per plans, India will emerge

as the skill capital by 2020 and we will be exporting skills and

L’s core purpose is to ensure that each and every c

Sanjay Shivnani is President, Vocational Education & Training, at CL. Before joining CL, Shivnani spent several years working at 3M India. An IIM Lucknow alumnus, he is responsible for CL’s geographic growth and for maintaining relationships with decision makers in the Asian academic community.



human capital to the rest of the world. Just

to share a statistic, by 2022 India will have

about 50 million additional skilled hands,

while the rest of the world will have a deficit

of 47 million.

India’s teeming millions and raw talent

can be harnessed by vocational education

and training which empowers these millions

with employable skills. It raises their

employability potential and gives them a far

better chance at improving their livelihoods

and partaking in the country’s economic

growth and progress.

CL wants to be at the forefront of this

engine of inclusive growth; it’s a natural

progression for us from regular mainstream

education to vocational education and

training. The contextual domain remains

the same and this is CL’s raison d’être which

is already articulated in our Core Purpose.

Vocational education and training is also very

outcome- and achievement-focused; training

by itself means nothing unless it results in

better salary and/or better employment and/

or new employment.

I think organizations have to realize and

internalize the fact that one way to do well

in business is to do good, and the greatest

good can happen if one works on a canvas

of inclusiveness.

on CL’s vocational education and training model and branding challenges CL Skill School works with a lot of poor

people in really backward areas. We train

them thoroughly on job-related skills and

get them placed with corporates that recruit

large, high-productivity workforces on the

ground, for example, in sales. The bedrock

of our business is the understanding that vocational training

is a livelihood issue for our trainees. When you and I go for

a training program, we only look to enhance our existing

skills, but for these guys it is a question of survival. This

makes them far more focused on the final outcome than we

urbanites can ever be. They have neither the patience nor the

need for ‘branding’ as we understand it. All our promotional

activities have to be extremely localized, through leaflets,

pamphlets and canvassing in the local language. We go door

to door to acquire trainees after drawing up village- and

block-level lists with the help of panchayats and other local

bodies (community mobilization drives). Thereafter, all they

really care about and judge us by is the end result – whether

we are really able to get them jobs as promised. There is not

much room for perceived brand value, etc. Our model can be

summed up in one simple phrase—‘repair and prepare’.

Most of the trainees are too poor to pay their own fees.

This is where our corporate clients and partners come in. We

work with many FMCG, telecom and BFSI companies which

hire the trainees at the end of the respective programs, and

they subsidize the cost of training. Our training centers are

generally located at the fringes of big cities, areas with a high

concentration of migrants and slumdwellers.

Our trainers are ITI-certified, ITI-trained people. They may

also come from rural schools and polytechnics. On a case to

case basis, we co-create the content with our corporate clients.

The government creates the content wherever it is involved.

on whether India is in a position to sustainably manage its demographic advantageI think the opportunity that India is sitting on is very real. The

real advantage that I have personally witnessed at the ground

level is no matter what one’s living conditions, Indians have

huge aspirations. That is real fire power alone; given some

empowerment, this fire power can be harnessed to create an

economic powerhouse that the world may not have seen till

now. My work in vocational training takes me to remote rural

locations, and when I spend time with the youth I notice that

they all want to become Amitabh Bachchans someday, even

India’s teeming mILLIOnS and raw talent can be harnessed by vocational education and TraInIng



PPP is a wOnderFuL framework and also the need of the hOur

though they have no idea where their next

meal is going to come from! Beside this, we

already have, in sheer numbers, the world’s

largest population below the age of 35, and

this is an enabling factor.

To ensure that we make all of these

natural advantages work for us and in the

right direction, we must ensure that all our

strategies, plans and programs focus on three

critical measurable parameters, or what one

can also term non-negotiables:

01 inclusivity

02 execution

03 stakeholder participation ensuring

integration of the outcomes

For example, the Ministry of Labour,

via the Directorate General of Employment

& Training (DGET), has come up with

world-class vocational training projects

in PPP mode, and even corporate India

is participating wholeheartedly to train

millions of youth, especially in rural

areas. However, the missing bit is job

creation, which must be activated by other

departments/ministries of the GoI. This

effort is not visible; at least not just yet.

Sustainability of vocational training

will be directly a function of win-win

partnerships between government

and industry along with gainful local

employment opportunities for the masses

who receive vocational training.

on the most immediate means to popularize the PPP model in IndiaThe government calls the shots here, and it

is their idea in the first place. CL is involved

in a number of PPPs with state governments

and the central government. PPP is a

wonderful framework and also the need of the hour. The

problem identified is right and so is the solution construct.

What really needs to improve is the government’s way

of operating the PPPs. The approach must be win-win, with

far less control. The government must learn to ‘let go’ after

having ensured that it has selected the right partner. Once

this is done well, there must be complete trust. Additionally,

PPPs must be allowed to operate in a private fashion rather

than with standard government processes and systems. Any

government must play the role of a facilitator. I know some

of this is wishful thinking given the fact that there are many

political compulsions, but such steps as I have suggested could

fire up the PPP juggernaut and encourage huge participation

from private industry.

Last but not the least, the government must give the

private industry time and breathing space to perform; this is

new for everyone.

on the changes in CL’s corporate DNA necessitated by government partnershipsWe are working with the governments of Punjab, Haryana,

UP, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil

Nadu, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka. Our projects span PPPs

directly with the state governments or as tripartite partners

with central government projects.

For the last fifteen years that CL has been in existence,

this is the first time that we have done a deep dive with

the government. It is early days still, and we are learning.

However, compared to the normal or prevailing view about

how the government functions, we have been pleasantly

surprised with the objectivity and purposefulness of the

projects in the education and specifically in the vocational

training space. Everyone in the government is on a fast-

track mode and wants to get things done. I find this very

encouraging and it empowers us to reach out and enhance our

engagement with the government.

Finally, I think one has always a choice to call a glass half

empty or half full.



the InduSTry has to participate in curriculum development/enhancement, and even deLIVery if required

on the curricular structure of education in IndiaI think this subject is like cricket; everyone in this country

will have a view on it. There is no rocket science here;

curriculum must be ever-changing and must reflect the needs

of the industry.

When we say ‘system’, then we must define the system. In

my definition, system includes employers and the industry as

well. Much too many of them are still sitting on the sidelines

and passing comments on the poor state of graduates and

their lack of employability. The system has to perform, and

this includes the industry as well. The industry cannot point

fingers; it has to participate in curriculum development/

enhancement, and even delivery if required.

On the other side of this equation is whether the other

system player allows for this suggested holy matrimony

to thrive. I am implying the holy cow boards, regulators,

councils, etc. Education is over-regulated and needs to be

unshackled. Like I said before, the government needs to let go.

See what industrial reforms did to this country. It’s now time

for educational reforms.

a fond story of transformation There are many; among them is the story of a young man

of about 25 from a small village in Solan, Himachal Pradesh.

His father was a construction laborer, and he had had to

drop out of school after the eighth standard. After a while,

he decided that he was becoming a burden on his family and

came to Chandigarh to make a living. In Chandigarh, he sold

vegetables at a sabzi mandi (vegetable market) and earned the

measly sum of R850–R1,000 a month. Out of this, he sent

R400 back home to his parents. I asked him how he managed

to make both ends meet. He said he only had one meal a day

and slept in the local municipal park. When he approached our

Chandigarh center, we put him through a two-week training

program to teach him how to sell water purifiers. After

attending the training, he got a job that paid him R4,500. His

life changed…in just two weeks! n

on mindsets and the oft-blamed specter of policy-level inertia as the key reason for the failure of socially-conscious entrepreneurshipFrankly, at least in this space I don’t see any

policy level inertia or at least it is not so

obvious. In fact, I think it is the other way

around; I think there is inertia in the private

industry. It is not jumping in as it should. I

think this is largely because such activities

are seen as ‘social’, which has come to mean

‘not for profit’. This is a mindset that needs

to change.

The government must ensure that PPP

projects provide an opportunity for private

industry to create economic value as well

as social value. This is a core sustainability

issue. This is critical, and in that sense

government mindsets need to change. Of

course there is always a difference between

profiting and profiteering.

From a very different angle, there

is a strong mindset within the current

government initiatives in vocational

training toward aligning all projects with

the manufacturing sector. This is flawed in

some sense, given that the service sector’s

contribution to economic growth is

outpacing the manufacturing sector’s

growth by several multiples. I am not

calling for abandoning the manufacturing

sector but for a small phase shift in

thinking and approach. For example,

speaking English or not can alone make the

difference between being employed and

unemployed. A strong handshake with

good doses of self-confidence can be far more

empowering than making a better weld!