Study of the apprenticeship programme in karnataka

Abstract

India today has the second largest work force in the world, which has been contributing significantly to its gross domestic product (GDP) . A major part of this work force is made up of India’s young population which often struggles to get employment. To avoid such a situation, the central government had enacted the Apprenticeship Act of India in 1961. The Act was further amended in 1973, 1986 and 2014 to cope with the changing times. Today, a student can apply for apprenticeship after completing his or her schooling, diploma, vocational studies, or Industrial Training Institute (ITI) course. The government provides financial reimbursement to the establishments to encourage them to employ and train these apprentices. We visited various stakeholders of the apprenticeship programme to gauge its current condition in the state of Karnataka. Unfortunately, our understanding from these visits is that the apprenticeship programme has still not been successful. The number of apprentices enrolling in the programme is declining. There is a lack of a proper database for the programme and the online portal does not seem to be working properly. Even the incentives given to the establishments are not fulfilling their purpose. This report is an attempt to find the reasons for this failure and present suitable solutions that can be adopted by the Government of Karnataka. We propose two solutions. Firstly, the current governing structure of the programme needs to be tweaked to clearly define the responsibilities of each person and department involved. This will create accountability and ownership among the government officials. Secondly, this programme can hugely benefit from a new brand and identity, just like the Make in India and Skill India campaigns conducted by the government. We hope that these solutions are helpful in turning around the plagued apprenticeship programme.