ITIS: Back to the centre stage

Industrial Training Institutes (ITIS) have rarely made it to the Union Budget speech, but this time things were different.

- NIVEDITA MOOKERJI

In her July 23 speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman put "employment and skilling" second on her list of nine Budget priorities, just after agriculture. The upgrade of ITIS and a slew of job creation schemes through various collaborations formed the core of the “employment and skilling" theme, making this Budget markedly different from the rest.

It's perhaps a matter of chance that ITIS, which were started soon after India's independence as a way to create employment, are being brought centre stage with the same goal as the country prepares for Viksit Bharat in 2047, marking 100 years of Independence. While ITIS have come full circle, where do they stand in terms of their primary objective of imparting engineering and nonengineering trade skills to high-school students and undergraduates for creating employment?

Even as the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship in the Union government makes policies that govern ITIS and the entire gamut of skill network, most of these institutes are run by state governments or private entities authorised by states. So, a mismatch between the central policy/curriculum and the states' capacity to train and deliver on the job front is obvious. A lack of skilled trainers, resource crunch, ineffective placement methods, outdated curriculum, and poorly equipped labs are some of the problem areas that ITIS face across states.