Purpose: Indian government initiated several skill development policies and different types of vocational education and training (VET). Yet the participation in skill education is low because of poor labour market outcomes. This paper aims to calculate returns to skill education to understand the type of training that will have better labour…

This book examines access, lifelong learning and education for all, which have been policy preoccupations in all countries for more than half a century, but have been overlaid and pushed aside by the development of mass higher education. The authors examine what has been achieved, what lessons have been learnt and what still remains to be done,…

India's informal economy accounts for more than half the country's GDP but is characterised by low levels of skills, and considerable barriers to skills development for workers. The Government of India has implemented ambitious policy initiatives for upskilling, designed to catalyse 'formalisation' of the economy, and improve productivity.…

Skill development has been a major policy agenda in several countries and there is a lot of emphasis on the promotion of vocational education and training (VET) programmes. This paper investigates the labour market outcomes of the vocationally trained population in India using the data from a nationally representative survey on employment and…

Artificial intelligence has produced new teaching and learning solutions that are now undergoing testing in different contexts. In addition to its impact on the education sector, AI is substantially altering labour markets, industrial services, agriculture processes, value chains and the organization of workplaces in particular. Technical and…

This handbook, first published in 2014, aims at helping policy makers and social partners understand some of the ways in which learning in the workplace can be encouraged and how its quality can be improved. It is also intended to help them understand some of the ways that such learning can be organised in a structured manner so that it benefits…

Purpose: This paper aims to analyze the role of human capital (HC), human resource development (HRD) and vocational educational and training (VET) in the emerging Indian economy. How may we define the HC, HRD and VET in India? To what extent and how as HRD investments in India contributed to India's recent economic development? What were the…

Skill development has been a major policy agenda of the Indian government in the past few years. This paper sheds light on the current scenario and labour market outcomes of vocationally trained population. The paper is based on data from two recent rounds of nationally representative employment and unemployment survey. The paper shows that 2.4%…

This paper makes an attempt to provide a review on challenges, outcomes and present situation in vocational education and training (VET) programs in some Asian countries. Various country-specific studies indicate that the VET system has not responded very well in the South Asian region. The VET stream is quite small. Despite there being a growing…

This article explores the notion of the duality principle, as embodied in the German dual system of Vocational Education and Training (VET), within the context of a field survey of skill shortages faced by German and Indian firms operating in India. The study finds that these firms experience problems with the quantity and quality of skills…

Akshar Forum, an experimental livelihood school in the semi-rural village of Pamohi, Assam, in Northeast India, tests cutting-edge methods in education in the context of underserved communities and rural development programs. Started in 2015, the school links 42 children and their parents to the vast knowledge resources of the Internet to teach…

This paper provides an overview of vocational education and training (VET) system in India, and discusses various challenges and difficulties in the Indian VET system. The paper also examines labour market outcomes of vocational graduates and compares these with those of general secondary graduates using a large-scale nationally representative…

The Higher Secondary Vocational Education programme in India was introduced in 1976-77, to boost the supply of manpower trained to an intermediate skill level. This paper uses data collected during a study of the impact of vocational business courses in the three states of Kerala, Goa and Haryana. The study collected information on a range of…

Records show that school enrollment for girls is still lagging behind in some areas in the Asia and Pacific region, which poses challenge for the region to achieve Education for All (EFA) by 2015. And girls' labor in the Asia and Pacific region continues to constitute a major obstacle towards gender parity in education, another EFA target. Girls'…

This volume contains papers submitted to the 12th Annual International Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (BCES), held in Sofia and Nessebar, Bulgaria, in June 2014, and papers submitted to the 2nd International Partner Conference, organized by the International Research Centre 'Scientific Cooperation,' Rostov-on-Don,…