Identify aptitude, hone the skills

The other day, a friend of mine who is a resident of Navi Mumbai told me he was looking for a skilled and qualified plumber for the last five days, but to no avail. I thought he was kidding, known that he is for his miserly ways.

Then, a colleague told me there was indeed a shortage of plumbers in Navi Mumbai as most of them were being lured away to Lavasa, a huge housing and tech park coming up close to Lonavala. Since they did not have quality plumbers, electricians and masons, they were hiring such men from the neighbouring cities of Navi Mumbai, Mumbai and Pune.

The outcome: The megapolis was facing a shortage of skilled and specialised manpower.
This set me thinking. The moment we speak of specialisation, we think of a one, two, maybe three-year courses. Why does specialisation have to synonymous with lengthy time span? Special skills can be picked up in far less time if one has the requisite aptitude and drive to achieve the goal.

To that end, I think we should start from scratch, which is to say by streamlining our education system. It’s good CBSE scrapped class X boards and introduced optional online tests.

This will help students who are brilliant, but can’t cope with parental pressure. One hopes other boards will follow suit and the system of scoring only 90 % and above will not be a criterion to get admission to courses that a student wants to pursue.

The next logical step would be to ask why only yearly courses are offered in graduation and post-graduation. Why does every course have to begin in July and end in March or April? Can’t we have courses spanning a week, a month or perhaps, six months? The trick lies in identifying leanings and aptitude (which may not necessarily be medical, engineering or information technology) and honing skills in that direction so that one picks up the strings fast and bridge the gap between demand and supply.

Mumbai has the underlying potential to become the knowledge capital, apart from being the financial capital of the country, by opening short-term courses to probably train people in areas that are seldom thought of. How often have we thought of devising short certificate courses on toilet-cleaning, nail-cutting, hair-cutting, sweeping and swabbing and many such areas where all Mumbaikars find it difficult to identify quality manpower.

Can’t we, for instance, take orders from large housing and infrastructure developers about their future requirements of trained workforce and deliver them the same after quick training? I tell you, we can do it. All it needs is the resolve to do things right.

Here, apparently, our rulers have an axe to grind in not recognising specialised short-term courses. Keeping a large population untrained and unskilled would probably earn them more votes and a longer reign, they think. History has it that a skilled or educated person, who knows how to earn money, does not vote. Notwithstanding the telling irony, it would be wise to get down to the brass tacks, identify skills and hone them faster.