ITIs and not IITs are the answer

Read about this interesting proposal in Outlook India. I have been wondering about the same issue for some time now. Based on my own experience of trying to hire software engineers I can say most colleges including some of the very popular Engineering colleges in the country are totally clueless about teaching real skills. Most guys can't think of solving simple problems, while they may regurgitate a perfect textbook answer stumbled when acted to apply it to simplest of real world problems. And we are talking some of the countries top engineering (except maybe the IITs and some erstwhile RECs) colleges. I can only imagine the level of engineering education in the small town colleges.
Again my own experience of studying in the major University has not been the most pleasant. Baring a few teachers, more didn't know how to make a topic interesting and almost none could relate theory to practice. No wonder we are a nation of mere drone workers and not of researchers. There is an understandable worry also reflected in media now about and impending skills shortage while millions remain unemployed and unemployable. But while we see a lot of jaw jaw happening on skills shortage in IT and such high skilled vocations not enough attention is being paid to a lack of training into vocational courses for the real poor.

Agriculture still employs like 60% of India. No amount of poverty alleviation programs will work unless we address such a skewed number. Most of such workers I guess are mere labourers who well having no other vocational skill work on pure manual labor. Meanwhile construction industry in India (again among the largest employers of real poor Indians) finds an acute shortage of skilled labour like plumbers/carpenters/electricians. Try getting someone skilled to do any sort of repair work at home and you'll realize that lack of training is a real concern. If we can train even 10% of this segment in the next 5 years that will mean something like 30 million people who end up trained skilled labour! That also means 30 million less people dependent on pure agriculture jobs (though many might end up working as pump repairers, tractor repairers etc which will add a lot of value to that sector too and actually generate a lot of employement for rural folks).
Currently there are only about 5000-6000 ITIs in India. And numbers don't tell the true story. A look at statewise figures reveal that the industrialized states like Karnataka, TamilNadu, Maharastra have almost double the number (range of 600-800) ITIs than the most populous states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar (300 and 98!) respectively. No wonder UP and Bihar mostly yield only unskilled labour since the training institutes simply don't exist. While I could not find average student intake in ITIs, some information mentioned a batch of 10-20 students for some specialized courses. Digging deeper there are around 50000 industrial units associated with the ITIs and since industrial apprentiship is a mandatory requirement if we assume 10 trainees an year per unit that gives it around 1/2 a million industrial graduates an year. For a population of 1 billion where 600 million are still dependent on land this is too small a number.
Why cant we have another 10000 IITs especially in areas that have been left behind the industrialization curve? There should be atleast 1 ITI per district headquarter. Infact a lot of big manufactoring and many service firms especially related to construction sectors can easily give apprentiship to such trainees. If some sort of contract to work for say 2 years at decent wages can be enforced a lot many might even fund the studies of poor students.
Judging from the IT sector experience the firms are already bearing the pain of skills shortage. Other sectors must also be experiencing the same. And wage inflation must be surely worrying the industry brasses. In such a scenario the need for better trained people hardly needs selling. My own take is that the industry might be happy to actually fund such training not just in terms of direct money contribution but in terms of course content and even faculty. Software - again as an example, already has top firms investing heavily in training facilities for freshers. Many firms have also started sending experienced professionals to colleges to conduct some workshops. The same idea can be implemented for ITIs too.
So the industry can actually pay for course and facility upgradation which can either be offset by some tax breaks or is simply taken in as a cost of business that slows down wage inflation - not a bad deal for many. As an added incentive the industry can offer paid education in return for a job contract - not a new idea since many firms do make freshers sign job bonds citing the training costs. Once such institutes and job contracts are in place, industry might even be willing to locate in areas currently low in development index because the skills supply is assured.
At the same time with more Indians being able to get into organised sector the whole issue of "unreported" economy can also be better tracked. Plus organised sector will enable rolling out of social security net across to people who need it the most.
Lets face it, we will not be able to eliminate poverty unless we address the basic employability issues staring in the face of majority of Indians. And the time to do so is now.