MasterChef; How About MasterPlumber, Carpenter...

India's massive skilling shortages can be fixed somewhat if the skills themselves were made more glamorous.

Govindraj Ethiraj
Updated: Feb 13, 2012 08:29:38 AM UTC

 “Hello & welcome to the Young Butcher Of The Year. Well done for getting here. You are one of the country’s top four young butchers. Now you have to compete to prove yourself to two of the industry’s finest..”

These  butchers formed part of BBC3’s Britain’s Young Talent Of The Year series. Now running for three years, the series has looked at different sets of professions. In 2011, it was carpenters, gardeners, bakers and tailors.

Indian television audiences are familiar with chefs displaying their culinary artillery amidst blazing lights and orchestrated music supervised by Boot camp-like instructors. But its yet to go beyond that. Just like MasterChef competitions, is there potential and need for similar competitions in other vocations, like plumbers and carpenters ?

Here's why. The butcher and plumber hunts address two important skilling issues. First, it finds and encourage youngsters to take up jobs in areas where there are few available. The second: it makes the vocation more aspirational. BBC, for example, positions the series as a celebration of 'young working heroes of Britain’.

“Its a question I ask everywhere,” Dilip Chenoy, Managing Director of the National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC) told me last week. “Would you want your son or daughter to become a chef ?” The answer, in many ways, determines how India’s massive skilling shortages will be addressed.

He should know. NSDC, a public-private partnership  is entrusted with the challenge of skilling 150 million workers in 10 years. Mostly by funding companies and initiatives for skilling .

There are strong reasons for broadbasing the skills debate. Estimates say close to 90% of Indian jobs are skills-based. On the other hand, some 250 million workers are presently `untrained and underemployed’. Another 240 million have to be effectively skilled in the next decade. If, among other things, India wants to see a GDP growth rate of 9% (or thereabouts).

On the supply side, India has around 7,500 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and polytechnics, catering to just 2.5 million people. This is insufficient. Take the case of India’s exploding automotive industry. An industry body report says 5 million new automotive jobs will be created in the next three years, 60% of which will be skilled. And this figure is expected to touch 25 million by 2016.  (Source: NSDC/People Matters)

Some economists are already warning that this is where the famed demographic dividend can turn into a demographic disaster – remember more than 65% of India is under 35 years of age. The Government appears to be seized of the problem. The creation of the NSDC was one response. It also hired S Ramadorai, former CEO of IT giant TCS, as Skilling Advisor to the Prime Minister.

What's needed is a big push. One way of doing it would be to add a glamour quotient, particularly in sectors where gaps are highest. And what better way to do it than a television reality show or public competition. Chenoy, who is plumbing for (pun not intended) vocational talent shows says talent hunts have always attracted more young people into the profession and added a much-needed aura.

Talent hunts also address the aspirational stumbling block. According to Chenoy, no carpenter really wants his son to become a carpenter. And similarly with other professions, unless forced to.

Whereas shows like Masterchef Australia have inspired more youngsters to take up cooking as a profession after wanting to compete in the shows. Thanks to which there are more chefs around.

Of course, thanks to the MasterChefs in general, food occupies much larger space of mind nowadays. There are more television shows, newspaper and magazine articles than ever. Travel magazines devote more space to food and the search for it with prominent references to the chefs.

Agreed that plumbers and carpenters may not become overnight stars or talking points. But the objective is basic awareness. Chenoy says he visited a major plumbing exhibition which had the latest in sanitaryware and sanitation technology. “I asked them, where are the plumbers ?” he recalls. Similarly, he spoke to paint maker Asian Paints to see if they could create a competitive platform for painters.

Britain’s Best Young Plumber show has the pizzazz (or is that for the bakers) of a chef hunt show. But its not just the lights and sound. The marketplace ought to be linked to the process. That year, Britain’s Young Plumber was sponsored by Better Bathrooms, a large hardware retailer in the UK. The `celebrity’ judge was Charlie Mullins, founder of Pimlico Plumbers, widely regarded as the plumber to the stars.

I'm quite sure we have our star plumbers too. Its only a matter of bringing them out.

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.

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