What should be the focus of developed countries - promoting industrial skills or education?
What should be the focus of developed countries - promoting industrial skills or education?
In any country, economic growth is a result of increased business activities in the industrial, service and agricultural sectors. Academic education should be supplemented by relevant skills required by the industry for young people to get jobs and prosper in their chosen field.
In my view, the focus of developed countries should be to promote industrial skills as well as academic education. Education lays the foundation to further acquire industrial skills and making youngsters competitive in various fields like Information technology, architecture, fashion designing, interior designing and so on.
The industry must play a key role in designing the curriculum, training methodologies and setting up facilities for training the trainers in the skill-based education sector. The thrust should be in promoting need-based and industry demand-driven skill education in the countries. In this respect political leaders and industry captains should join hands to strengthen the future of the younger generation.
In India, certain states have blindly provided permission to vocational education providers without taking into account the sector-specific requirement of the industries for skilled people. This has led to people graduating with skills for which there in job market .Some countries have dedicated skill development councils which do periodical market survey to find out the demand for specific skills required by the industry. Such good practices should be adopted by all countries desiring to increase their national growth rates.
The academic institutions can assist by designing curriculum in the right way, adopting training methodologies and employing master trainers to provide ready-to-work skilled people to the industries.
Similarly, mobilization and retention of students to a particular course of skill is also a challenge which has to be resolved by the industry. The society at large needs to start giving respect to skill development and the industry too needs to adopt a proactive approach towards promoting skill-based education.
Governments must encourage skill based education but must not regulate hem. The private sector needs to be encouraged by governments in the following manner:
- The development of a culture within the service industries which promotes and enhances the skills development of its workforce.
- The implementation of policies programs and services that support industry needs and priorities in relation to skills and workforce development.
- The achievement of quality skills outcomes throughout the service industries.
Discussion
- RE: What should be the focus of developed countries - promoting industrial skills or education? -Deepa Kaushik (04/12/14)
- Countries get the tag of the “developed” ones by the way they promote their industrial skills, which is possible with the sharp intellect and knowledge that comes from education. So, it is very important to keep a balance of both the industrial skills and education for the upliftment of the country.
Coming on to the industrial skills, it is the main source of revenue generation for the country which leads to its economic development. The industrial skills play and important role is setting up a stability in international market, raising its value.
When we talk of the same skills with respect to the developed countries, they being gained the tag of “developed” ones, have already pocketed in immense wealth. As we discussed the requirement of sharp intellect for the promotion of the industrial skills, the developed countries don’t bother to buy some highly brilliant minds to work for their betterment. The developing nations faces the brain drain, and the developed ones gets profit with the same.
With regard to the education, they just keep it as a essential feature, just to match foot with the literacy race in the world front. The knowledge that they portray is just to ensure their intellect remain fair enough to rule the literate class from other countries to get the best out of them.
Closely analysing the values of both, the developed countries definitely hold a upper hand for the promotion of industrial skills, which gains them power, class, respect and most importantly the authority.
- What should be the focus of developed countries - promoting industrial skills or education? -Janhvi Johorey (04/04/14)
What should be the focus of developed countries - promoting industrial skills or education?
Introduction
Developed countries should promote inculcation of industrial skills so that they are able to capitalize on the large working population. Education is not necessarily the key to economic growth. Industrial skills are the best option for improving the employability of a person. It is important to create the right kind of proficiency so that people can excel in jobs and contribute to the growth of the economy.
Viewpoint
Following the global recession, people have realized that promoting industrial skills is more important than prestigious degrees from top universities. Industrial skills can promote the emergence of entrepreneurial skills and encourage people to be able to grow and develop as professionals in their own right. A large working population is a major demographic dividend for any country. Therefore, it is important that people should be able to get a chance to grow and develop key skills in managing companies and industries.
Professional skills can empower people to start small scale enterprises as well. Jobless growth is becoming a major problem in many developed countries. Another key issue is that developed nations have the ability to promote industrial skills in a wide cross section of its population. Developed nations can combat problems such as large scale unemployment by inculcating industrial skills in people.
Developed nations should also be able to provide basic education to its citizens so that they can be skilled enough to acquire vocational skills at a later point. Providing educational care to citizens is the basic function of any state. However, industrial skills can do more than provide literacy to people. You can also use vocational and entrepreneurial skills programs to empower people and enable them to rise above challenges such as poverty. Urban poverty is one of the biggest problems being faced by developed nations. Another issue is inequitable economic growth. Marginalized sections of society often turn to crime out of sheer desperation. It is because of these reasons that it is important to instil key industrial skills in individuals so that they are able to improve their employability.
Industrial skills also give individuals the chance to become capable professionals in key fields such as manufacturing and services. This is the main reason why vocational education and professional as well as technical degree programs have caught on in a big way nowadays. It is essential to ensure that people become skilled in particular fields which are expanding and growing. Education or academic success does not guarantee a job or the proficiency to set up a company. It is important to ensure that the developed nations provide skills to their citizens that will help them to contribute towards as well as initiate economic growth.
Skills development is an accurate measure of the advancement of any nation. Equipping people with industrial skills will increase their chances of obtaining gainful employment and gaining access to higher standards of living. The target population needs to be given a good grounding of industrial skills so that growth and development are possible in key sectors as well.
Conclusion
Industrial skills can lead to the economic growth of any country. Developed nations are facing continuous crisis due to global financial crises. Education should remain an important goal of any government. But, apart from literacy, the goal of a state should be to impart adequate industry skills so that people have a chance to become professionals who can earn money. It is important to promote equitable economic growth by promoting industrial skills.
