Traversing across Goa, especially crisscrossing the industrial estates, you may have come across youth with NAPS in bold letters printed on their T-shirts. All these youth, males and females, are apprentices working in different companies under the central government’s National Apprentice Promotion Scheme (NAPS) launched in the year 2016. Consequently, the Goa government too began enrolling apprentices under this scheme beginning in the financial year 2018-19 with 38 apprenticeship contracts issued in the first year.
Last month, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant announced the launch of the Goa Chief Minister’s Apprenticeship Scheme 2023 (GCMAS), which is the extension of the NAPS in the State. The Chief Minister had stated that under the scheme, the government aims to place 10,000 Goan youth across the public sector, autonomous organisations as well as the private sector and provide gainful employment that would be accounted as experience on the individual’s CV. The same scheme was in operation from 2021 as Goa Chief Minister’s Apprenticeship Training Scheme, 2021, with Goa Human Resource Development Corporation (GHRDC) as the nodal implementation agency. Despite best efforts in the years 2021-22 and 2022-23, as per the data available, only 7,719 apprentices could be engaged with 2,729 apprentices completing their training and a whopping 3,055 apprentices dropping out of the scheme.
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While the government has aimed at providing 10,000 youth from the State with employment opportunities under the scheme, as on July 1, 2023, only 1,212 have registered during the current financial year, of which 356 have dropped out of the programme already.
Apprenticeship, the practical training that was also addressed as on-the-job training earlier, had been a part and parcel of all courses under the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), the diploma courses as well as skill-based professional courses in the hospitality and technical education sector. Earlier, through placement melas those that have completed their classroom learning would be placed as apprentices in the private sector companies, and based on the performance and availability of vacancies, these students on completion of the apprenticeship period would be absorbed into regular employment. Therefore, the GCMAS 2023 is nothing but literally old wine in a new bottle, served with some side snacks such as placement in the government sector organisations and autonomous bodies.
Under the Apprentices Act of 1961, it is obligatory for companies with more than 30 employees to engage apprentices in all categories and the government has undertaken a task to strictly implement this rule. While apprenticeship as part of the course was a training process, the GCMAS places it as employment, and therefore will the organisations and companies participating in the scheme then not curtail the number of contractual employees? If so, how will the government ensure that these issues are addressed?
Apart from this, concerns arise about whether a large section of the already employed on a contract basis will lose employment. As reported, many of the multi-tasking staff (MTS) employed at Goa University for nearly a decade have been rendered jobless, paving the way for new recruitments. Will the burden of creating new apprenticeships fall on the already existing employees?
Goa has been reeling under a high unemployment rate and there is constant unease amongst the youth.
While taking into consideration these loopholes, along with the dismal response to the scheme and the high drop-out rate of apprentices, the Government should course-correct its policy in the interest of Goan youth.
