Case studY
Culture Specific Skills for Youth in North East DR. Jayashree Kurup
Lying in the lap of easternmost Himalayan hills are the eight states constituting North-East India, namely, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. Spread over an area of 2,55168 sq km as one of the most ethically and linguistically diverse regions in Asia, each state has its distinct cultures and traditions described as a “rainbow country, extraordinarily diverse and colourful, mysterious when seen through parted clouds”. The Scenario North East India has developed a network of education generally that is fairly wide and accessible to the majority of its population with a large number of institutions from the primary to the university level. The NE states have a high literacy level, higher than the all India average of 64.8% and female literacy rate of 53.7%. In contrast, in the North Eastern Region (NER) the literacy level stands at 68.5% and 61.5% respectively. However, in the NER the high level does not indicate a high level of productivity in the region or higher employability of the educated labour force. In the NE Region nearly 80% of the enrolment in the college level institutions is in the Arts/Humanities stream. Writing in the context of higher education in the region, the North East Region Vision 2020 notes that ‘higher education infrastructure in the region has focused largely upon producing college graduates in the arts and social sciences, who have looked to the government for employment.’ Although attempts have been made to introduce vocational education at the +2 level in North East India, not much emphasis was given to it as a stream of study. The infrastructure and activities of the ITIs in North East India also has not come much into the limelight. The 46
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North Eastern Council (NEC) statistics of 2006 indicate that the total amount of them, which includes the new ones, plus the strengthening of the old ones, is around 55, with Assam having the highest – over 20. The Framework Indira Gandhi National Open University in its endeavour to bring quality education to the Region has further expanded its activities in the Region by establishing the IGNOU Institute for Vocational Education and Training (IIVET) at Shillong, Meghalaya to equip people with skills and knowledge to expand their life choices. Keeping this in mind and the National Policy on Skill Development and the Vision 2020 for the NE Region, IIVET endeavours to focus on three areas of training: those which fuel the development of the region such as, agro-based activities, water conservation, organic farming, horticulture, tourism and paramedical sciences; those that tap the opportunities created by global trends and expanding professions, the most obvious being IT and ITES sectors; and areas which focus on ‘core competencies’
of the people in the region, that is, in areas that the people of the region have an innate talent and interest, such as, fashion technology and product design, airlines industry, sports and physical fitness and music, or those based on indigenous knowledge and technology, such as, bamboo, silk, traditional textiles and so on. Hence, IIVET has two broad sections one focuses on contemporary vocational training and the other on indigenous knowledge and technology which focuses on selecting/identifying the indigenous skills, if necessary value add them for the contemporary society and impart training in such skills, which will become livelihood generating. Accordingly, IIVET envisages a plan of action that is multi layered – it aims to create a work force among the youth of the region through wage employment or self employment in both the organised and the unorganised sector by imparting skills in pre-service conditions, to impart training for skills upgradation to in service workers, to certify prior knowledge of unskilled workers, to give to the term ‘Vocation’ fresh and long standing implication; from