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Ajit Thakur and Amit Mittal, International Journal of Research in Engineering, IT and Social Sciences, ISSN 2250-0588, Impact Factor: 6.565, Volume 09 Issue 01, January 2019, Page 176-181 Measuring the Employability of Students Enrolled in a Vocational Education and Training Program: A Case-Based Approach Ajit Thakur1 and Amit Mittal2 1 (Research Scholar, Chitkara Business School, Chitkara University, India) 2 (Professor, Chitkara Business School, Chitkara University, India) Abstract: Very few studies in India have attempted to measure the effectiveness of vocational education and training (VET) programs. Using a VET institution in Pune (India) as a case study, fifty-four human resource managers were surveyed to measure the effectiveness of the VET programs in terms of how they enhanced the employability of the students enrolled. It was observed that the level of perceived employability in the students differed as the type of organization changed. Overall it was discovered that the training programs of the selected organizations were effective in meeting their broader aim of enhancing employability amongst students. Limitations of this study and scope for future studies are also discussed. Keywords: vocational education and training, employability, Human Resource Management, India I. INTRODUCTION Rapid industrialization in India would require a gross incremental workforce of around 250 million by 2030; India could potentially emerge as a global supplier of skilled manpower (Shrivastava, 2017). However,the statistics of the unemployed population is very high in India. Table No 1 shows the rate of unemployed people in Maharashtra State. Though from the table it can be observed that this rate is decreasing, according to UN report published by ‘The Times of India’ (2017), the unemployment in India will rise in 2017 and 2018. This is the alarming situation for India. Maharashtra being the second largest state and being one of the biggest manufacturing hubs of India is prone to this event of rising unemployment in near future. Rising unemployment will have a serious and long-term impact on Indian Economy and Social Conditions. Table1: Unemployment Rate in Maharashtra Month Maharashtra (%) Jan-16 4.6 Feb-16 3.7 Mar-16 6 Apr-16 9.9 May-16 9.1 Jun-16 6.6 Jul-16 7.9 Aug-16 9 Sep-16 6.5 Oct-16 4.4 Nov-16 5.1 Dec-16 5.2 Jan-17 4.2 Feb-17 3.5 Mar-17 7.9 Apr-17 4 May-17 4.9 Jun-17 4.1 Jul-17 3.5 Aug-17 4.8 Sep-17 3.7 Oct-17 3.2 Source- BSE-CMIE (unemploymentinindia.cmie.com) Nov. 2017 Although millions of young people get graduated every year; employability of technical programs’ students is a debatable issue in India. Many human resource (HR) practitioners criticize the traditional education http://indusedu.org This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Page 176 Ajit Thakur and Amit Mittal, International Journal of Research in Engineering, IT and Social Sciences, ISSN 2250-0588, Impact Factor: 6.565, Volume 09 Issue 01, January 2019, Page 176-181 system and believe that it does not add value to students. HR Professionals demand exposure to on the job training to students while receiving an education.There was a need to scientifically study the impact of Vocational Education and Training (VET) on employability.Therefore this study was conducted to investigate if at all on the job training has any significant relationship with the employability of students enrolled in technical courses/ programs. To achieve this objective the researcher surveyed HR professionals of organizations that had employed the students enrolled in VET programme run by Yashaswi Institute of Technology in Pune (India). II. LITERATURE REVIEW Roy(2016), in an article, mentions the education system in India has not been very effective in making the youth employable. Thus, increasing the unemployment rate and creating a hindrance in the country’s progress. While comparing India’s skilled workforce at the world level, India scores the least at 2% against Korea (96%), Japan (80%), Germany (75%), UK (68%) and China (40%). The major reason behind is today’s education contributes very less towards skilled manpower. The way to skill today’s youth is through vocational training and education. This requires giving today’s youth proper guidance, counseling, training and channeling their thoughts and enthusiasm in the right direction. India as a young nation has tremendous potential in improving the skill-based learning to cater not only the domestic requirements but also to cater the outside the boundary requirements. The Economic Survey 2014-15 has highlighted that “in order to bring expansion and structural transformation, India needs to utilize its foremost resource of unskilled labor by creating skilled and industry-ready manpower. While ‘Make in India’ is an important goal, the future course of Indian development depends on both ‘Make in India’ and ‘Skill India’ initiatives. With a substantial amount of foreign direct investments being invited to India, companies that open their factories and manufacturing units in India will need a local skilled workforce which can be generated by duly educating the youth through vocational training”. With the aim of developing the Indian economy as well as creating employment opportunities the government has introduced the concept of “skill development “. With this concept, the National Skill Development Corporation was launched with a target of skilling and upskilling around 400 million population by 2022. Unni(2016), mentions India today is one among the fastest economy. The economy is expected to grow at 7.2% in 2017-18 and 7.7 in the year 2019-20. Indian economy is now growing into knowledge economy diversifying from the agricultural to manufacturing and service. The government of India is aggressively trying to convert India into a competitive, high growth and high productivity economy. This has resulted in high demand for skilled workers. Unfortunately, the education system until now has not been a contributor to the plans designed for a better India. This has resulted in a mismatch between the skill required and education obtained as well as jobs and occupations. The data provided by the author states that “More than 12 million youth in the range of 15 and 29 years old are predicted to become part of India's employment each year for the following two decades. The government's current study on skill requirement presumes that by 2022, another 109 million or so skilled laborers will be required in the 24 keys industries of the economy. The research work further defines what a skill gap in the labor market means, the role of vocational education, the changes in the skill requirement of high education workers in different industries and education groups. The work concludes that if the non-technical graduate, as well as non-technical diploma or certificate holders, should be placed in the lower graduate intensity occupations as this will help to bridge the skill gap and release the strain on higher educated graduates. Similarly, the Higher educated graduates should be exposed to practical work during their coursework. Coffieldet al. (2008),In a literature review on Employment and Skills, the reviewer laid stress on the role of the employer in training and retraining the employees and preparing for the future work demands. The reviewer proposed that the role of an employer should become a statutory entitlement if certainly achievable progress is not seen. The study is a four-year project undertaken in the UK, where the progress is measured after the introduction of learning and skill council in 2001. The report also investigated the financial return of the employers’ investment in training. But lack of data on the employer’s spending as well as the returns to training could not be generated, as well as the impact on business behavior and investment in training is limited. However, the report encouraged employers to come forward and take a leading role in the reform and development of vocational education in their sector. The author encouraged their greater use of Train to Gain funding for employee development and promoting the voluntary “skills pledge”. Grubb (2006), In a literature review about the complexity of the vocational education training, the author tries to define VET, as per the author the type of education, training content, module, deliverance varies from country to country. Vocational education provides job-specific training to work in particular trades. Countries across the globe differ on the status and definitions of VET. Similarly, differences are also observed in the content of the training programmes as well as the institutes involved in delivering the training problem. The author points out that it is very common to differentiate VET in terms of initial preparation, the requirement in labor market, specific training needed, up gradation training, retraining when workers change occupation, and http://indusedu.org This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Page 177 Ajit Thakur and Amit Mittal, International Journal of Research in Engineering, IT and Social Sciences, ISSN 2250-0588, Impact Factor: 6.565, Volume 09 Issue 01, January 2019, Page 176-181 most important remedial training for those who have been employed for a long time. Linked to this, the author indicates that education and training in Vocational Education and training are inseparable. Singh (2000), reported that a holistic approach should be followed to enhance the skill, knowledge,and attitudes of the less fortunate ones. The author states that from the statistics he had collected for his study shows that the skilling the students ensures them of employability but a group of students also take a higher leap of entrepreneurship. The professional training endeavors to support values in the students close by expertise adapting however the reasonable directed in schools, through OJT and apprenticeship preparing in an industry. During the time spent in skilling, the students also learn or adopt a positive view or attitude towards the work. A few characteristics, for example, collaboration, truthfulness, resilience, train, work morals and pride of work. He asserts that a serene society and condition if accomplished with employability of rich HR through successful esteem based professional instruction. The union budget 2015, paved the way for the National Skills Mission to complement with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” project. At present, there are 20 different government bodies in India running skill development programmes. The report further states that “The Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE) and the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) created their own sector skill councils last year to identify skill development needs in the country, even as the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has been setting up Sector Skill Councils since 2011. A Labour Market Information System (LMIS) that should have been one centralized resource has been developed in different forms by at least five government agencies.” The existence of so many government agencies with no detailed policies has resulted in a failure to standardizethe process and results thereof. A 2013 paper of the Institute of Applied Manpower Research (IAMR)doubts the foundation of the country’s goal of making 500 million people skilled. Government is putting efforts to impart skills into farmers, laborers in manufacturing sectors and entrepreneurs. However due to duplication of work and unclear governmental policies confusion is ever increasing. This has led to a thought that investment into skills must be done only after rigorous groundwork to set policies. Sill improvement is possible if the skill gap is identified from authentic market signals. At present, the studies undertaken for discovering skill gaps filed to provide responsive and actionable data. This consequently affects the skill improvement scheme designs. The first move shall be to provide with the accurate statistical data about labor market which can further be used in designing and controlling VET programmes. The World Bank Enterprise Surveys (2014), reveal that only 35.9% of firms in India were offering formal training programmes for their employees against China’s almost 79%. Employers do not wish to invest in skill development of their employees and employees also do not have the ability and willingness to pay for undergoing training to improve skills. In such a situation, it is absolutely necessary to pull investment from industry and raise resources required for training. To make this happen there is a needfora credit market with collateral guarantees for participants of a training programme to guard the interest of investors. Planned coordination with private sectors will be a key issue in the success of such a framework. Shukla (2012), conducted an empirical study on the employability skills of engineering students in Bhopal. Data was collected through a questionnaire and was analyzed using T-test. The paper concludes that one single skill will not lead to success. Today’s scenario calls for multitasking. Engineering graduates have to come out from the books and study the real and practical problems. The study concluded that the university curriculum needs to change. A more practical approach like apprenticeship training and live projects must be included. Hypotheses Development Researcher framed hypotheses based on literature review and discussion with experts in the field. H1: There is a significant relationship between the type of organization and perception of employability of VET students. H2: The amount of expenditure on salaries and training is significantly higher when a number of NonVET employees are higher than the number of VET students. III. RESEARCH METHODS Sampling Frame HR professionals of organizations wherein YIT students are getting on the job training under VET program were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. This questionnaire consisted of total 11 questions out of which 6 questions where designed to check the HR professionals’ perception of employability of VET enrolled students. These questions were framed with the help of experts working in manufacturing organizations. The 5-point Likert’s scale was used for all these 6 questions. On this 5-pointscale, 1 meant ‘Strongly disagree’ and 5 Meant ‘Strongly Agree ‘Other 5 questions were forced questions designed to collect information pertaining to the profile of the organizations. 60 HR professionals in and around Pune city were approached through non-probabilistic convenient sampling technique for data collection. They were given with the questionnaire and requested to respond on http://indusedu.org This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Page 178 Ajit Thakur and Amit Mittal, International Journal of Research in Engineering, IT and Social Sciences, ISSN 2250-0588, Impact Factor: 6.565, Volume 09 Issue 01, January 2019, Page 176-181 their own. The filled questionnaires were collected. Out of 60,54 people filled in the complete questionnaire and returned it to the researcher. These 54 responses were considered for final data analysis. SPSS is used to analyze the data. IV. DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS Table 2: Reliability of the scale Cronbach's Alpha No. of Items .630 11 In social science, Cronbach’s alpha value of .7 and more is considered as an indication of the reliabilityof the instrument. However, in cases where sample size is not big, the value which is close to .7 can also be an indication of the reliability of the scale. In this study, the Cronbach’s alpha value of 6.30 is considered a reliable value. Future studies may increase the sample size to increase the reliability of the scale. Respondents Profile Table3: Profile of respondents Frequency Percent Valid Percent Designation Organization No of VET students enrolled at your organization No of polytechnic employees other than VET HR Executive 2 3.70 3.70 Assistant HR Manager 15 27.78 27.78 HR Manager 37 68.52 68.52 Total Automobile 54 8 100.00 14.81 100.00 14.81 Electronics 8 14.81 14.81 Industrial Goods 28 51.85 51.85 Auto Ancillary 10 18.52 18.52 Total 20-50 54 4 100.00 7.41 100.00 7.41 51-80 35 64.81 64.81 81-110 15 27.78 27.78 Total 20-50 54 2 100.00 3.70 100.00 3.70 51-80 20 37.04 37.04 81-110 23 42.59 42.59 More than 110 9 16.67 16.67 Total 54 100.00 Table no. 3 gives the respondents’ profile. Total 54 responses were collected. Descriptive Statistics Table 4: Employability Perception scale I think that the employees who have completed their education through ‘Learn and Earn’ Scheme are highly trainable I think that the costs involved in the training of the employees who have completed their education through ‘Learn and Earn’ Scheme are lower as compared to other employees I think that the effectiveness of training among the employees who have completed their education through ‘Learn and Earn’ Scheme is better as compared to other employees I think that after a training programme, the employees who have completed their education through ‘Learn and Earn’ Scheme utilize their learning better than other employees I think that the employees who have completed their education through ‘Learn and Earn’ Scheme possess a better learning attitude as compared to other employees 100.00 N Min Max Mean Std. Deviation 54 2.00 5.00 3.7593 .75073 54 2.00 4.00 3.3704 .55952 54 3.00 5.00 3.6296 .55952 54 3.00 5.00 3.8889 .74395 54 3.00 5.00 4.0741 .69640 http://indusedu.org This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Page 179 Ajit Thakur and Amit Mittal, International Journal of Research in Engineering, IT and Social Sciences, ISSN 2250-0588, Impact Factor: 6.565, Volume 09 Issue 01, January 2019, Page 176-181 I think that the employees who have completed their education through ‘Learn and Earn’ Scheme retain their learning longer 54 3.00 5.00 4.0556 .73758 as compared to other employees Overall Mean 3.7963 The statement ‘I think that the employees who have completed their education through ‘Learn and Earn’ Scheme possess a better learning attitude as compared to other employees’ has received the maximum mean value (4.07). At the other hand lowest mean value was recorded for ‘I think that the costs involved in the training of the employees who have completed their education through ‘Learn and Earn’ Scheme are less as compared to other employees’ (3.37).The overall mean of this subscale 3.79 indicates that generally, HR professionals agree that the employability of the VET students is higher than their counterparts. Hypothesis Testing H1: There is a significant relationship between the type of organization and perception of employability of VET students. This hypothesis is tested by running one-way ANOVA test in SPSS. The result is given in table no. 5. Table 5: ANOVA- type of organization and perception of employability of VET students Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Between Groups 4.398 3 1.466 19.547 .000 Within Groups 3.750 50 .075 Total 8.148 53 From table no. 5 it is observed that the significance value of F test is less than .01. This indicates that the Null hypothesis – ‘There is no significant relationship between the type of organization and perception of employability of VET students’ is failed to be accepted.Therefore, we accept H1. H2: The amount of expenditure on salaries and training is significantly higher when a number of Non-VET employees are higher than the number of VET students. Table 6- Pearson’s Correlation Salary and Training Expenditure on Polytechnic Employees No. of VET No. of including VET students polytechnic Students for last enrolled at your employees year organization other than VET Salary and Training Pearson 1 .385(**) .754(**) Expenditure on Correlation Polytechnic Employees Sig. (2-tailed) .004 .000 including VET Students N for last year 54 54 54 No of VET enrolled at organization students Pearson your Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N No of polytechnic Pearson employees other than VET Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N .385(**) 1 .004 .343(*) .011 54 54 54 .754(**) .343(*) 1 .000 .011 54 54 54 From table no. 5 it is observed that the correlations among salary and other (training) expenditure, number of VET students enrolled and the number of Non-VET employees enrolled is significant (Since p< .1). This means that as numbers of VET and Non- VET employees increase the salary and other expenditure also increases significantly. The important thing here is that the strength of correlation among variables. The correlation between salary expenditure and number of VET students enrolled in any particular organization is weaker (r1= .385) than that of between salary and other expenditures and a number of Non-VET technical employees (r2 =.754). In other words,a number of Non-VET technical employees increases the salary and training expenditure also increases significantly as compared when the number of VET students is higher than Non- VET technical employees. As significance values of Pearson’s correlations are less than .01 we failed to http://indusedu.org This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Page 180 Ajit Thakur and Amit Mittal, International Journal of Research in Engineering, IT and Social Sciences, ISSN 2250-0588, Impact Factor: 6.565, Volume 09 Issue 01, January 2019, Page 176-181 accept null hypotheses that there is no significant correlation between salary and training expenditure and number of VET and non-VET employees. Looking at correlations values we accept our hypothesis- ‘The amount of expenditure on salaries and training is significantly higher when number of Non-VET (Nonvocational) employees than when the number of VET students is higher’ V. DISCUSSION AND SCOPE FOR FUTURE STUDIES It was found that the VET program is adding value to the learners and enhancing their employability. Moreover, the YIT Pune run VET programme is cost effective too. It helps reduce the training cost which otherwise would have incurred to train fresh employees who join the organization after completing their technical education through traditional courses. This is a learning lesson to the technicaleducation system and state administration. The technical programs should have more practical exposure and on the job training facilities so as to improve the employability of the students. However further research is required to find in which type of organizations VET is more effective. Such knowledge may give better insights into the VET’s effectiveness. Such studies should have been conducted in other parts of the country and include various other VET programs as well. Then only findings of this study may be generalizable. This research studied only HR professionals’ perception of employability and expenditure on training and did not collect real statistics about expenditure on training of employees. Future studies may collect the actual statistics about the expenditure on training of VET enrolled students and other students. Such data will give a meaningful finding ofthe effectiveness of the VET programs. VI. REFERENCES [1] Shrivastava A. (2017 Mar. 25) How to bridge the gap between academia and industry? Retrieved from https://www.peoplematters.in/article/skilling/how-to-bridge-the-gap-between-academia-and-industry15203?utm_source=peoplematters&utm_medium=interstitial&utm_campaign=learnings-of-the-day Dated 2017 Nov. 23 [2] unemploymentinindia.cmie.com (2017) Unemployment Rate in India. Available from https://unemploymentinindia.cmie.com/ [3] Roy.P.,(08 June 2016) ‘ONLY 2% OF INDIAN WORKFORCE IS SKILLED’ .The Pioneer. Retrieved From http://www.dailypioneer.com/avenues/only-2-of-indian-workforce-is-skilled.html. [4] Unni, J. (2016). Skill gaps and employability: Higher education in India. 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Employability Skill among Professionals–Chagrin of HR Executives in Indian Labor Market: A Study on Engineering Graduates of Bhopal City. VSRD International Journal of Business and Management Research, 2. [11] India - Enterprise Survey 2014. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://microdata.worldbank.org/index.php/catalog/2225 http://indusedu.org This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Page 181