Wadhwani Next Generation Employment College (WF-NGEC) Initiative
The Wadhwani Foundation Next Generation Employment College (WF-NGEC) seeks to introduce a hybrid model combining the best of the American model of Community Colleges offering a 2 year Associate Degree program and the German model of Apprenticeship to produce ready-for-employment knowledge workers to meet the needs of Indian Industry.
While India has a skill shortage at all levels, the school dropouts are addressed by several programs by NGOs, NSDC (National Skill Development Corporation), ITIs (Indian Technical Institutes) and other private Vocational Training providers. Plenty of Colleges offering graduate and post-graduate degrees are well entrenched in Indian society, though their graduates also seem to suffer from a mix of poor employable skills combined with being over-qualification for many jobs.
Most government interventions to address the skill shortages work within this framework and offer more of the same, which does not seem to address the root problem of lack employable skills and inclusion of larger number of students. What is needed is a out of the box game-changer, which can improve accessibility, increase inclusiveness, lower costs and creates upward mobility. Global experience shows that a mezzanine level 2 year Associate Degree will help achieve this goal. US, Germany, UK, Australia, all reportedly have over 50% of their workers armed with such degrees.
Wadhwani Foundation's WF-NGEC initiative wants to addressed this hitherto ignored space by targetting the 4.5 million students who do not pursue a degree after completing 12th grade. In association with our partners, we plan to support insititutions offering such courses by providing them the "soft infrastructure" around Professional Services of world-class Program Design including Curriculum and Course Development, Teacher Training and Capacity Building, Technology Platform and Collaboration with Industry.
While we will primarily help the Educational Institutions, we are also working with the entire eco-system for national deployment of this program. This includes Central Government (Minstry of HRD and Planning Commission), State Governments (like Karnataka), Industry (National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) and individual firms like Reliance Retail, Royal Orchid Hotels, etc.