AISECT: India’s Pioneer Skilling University

Only 4 percent of India’s 400 million workforce is formally trained as against 20 percent in China and 60-80 percent in Europe and USA. AISECT University, which integrates skills development into conventional study programmes, offers a model worthy of emulation -Indranil Banerjie They call him Santosh-NET, the local bazaar go-to guy for all types of Internet-based services. His tiny shop in Neelbad village in Bhopal district, Madhya Pradesh, is set in a typical market made up of squat brick-and-cement buildings. A large badly painted sign advertises E-Registration services in Hindi and English. Locals, old and young, women, labourers and tradesmen trickle in, thrusting their faces at the half glass partition of his shop front. Some come to collect a government pension, or deposit part of their days earnings while others want to apply for government services such as PAN card, land registration, online railway tickets and so on. Santosh is also the authorised partner of a few well-known banks, including the State Bank of India, and the link between poor — and mainly illiterate — clients and the banks. He is authorised to open bank accounts, deposit and withdraw money on their behalf as well as send remittances to distant villages. Every transaction is cleared by biometric checks to prevent fraud. Santosh Kumar Maran, aka Santosh-NET, is one of the 15,000 rural youth who have benefited from a skilling programme run by a private organisation called the All India Society for Electronics and Computer Technology (AISECT, estb.1985) — which in 2010 established its second university in Bhopal (the first was the Dr. C.V. Raman University, Bilaspur, Chattisgarh in 2006) sanctioned by the Madhya Pradesh state government through special legislation, and has since emerged as AISECTs largest flagship university. In 2010 Maran, a class XII dropout, enrolled for a six-month course with AISECT. He was trained to use computers, the Internet and its various applications, in one of AISECTs 15,000 multi-purpose skill and services centres countrywide established under the franchise model, after which AISECT handheld him through the process of setting up a kiosk-based business with a computer, printer and biometric devices. That enrolment decision changed his life. “I have been running this kiosk for seven years and today my income averages Rs.40,000 per month”, he says, with a hint of justifiable pride in his voice. “My customers trust me and I am at their service every day from 8 a.m in the morning to 8 p.m at night.” In exchange, he pays a small commission to AISECT for their continuing backend online support and periodic skills upgradation. AISECT is the brainchild of Santosh Kumar Choubey, an engineer and science evangelist, who believes millions of his countrymen require training in basic skills, including computer operations, to make a sustainable living and enable India’s economic take off. An electronics alumnus of NIT, Bhopal (formerly known as MACT), Choubey studied communications technology and believes that bringing technology skills to the masses is becoming increasingly crucial. Having grown up in the small Madhya Pradesh…