Employer Engagement in Hyderabad (India)
Project Date: March 2008 - October 2009
Working in partnership with two NGOs based in
India, CSD delivered a project aiming to match local employer
skills needs with the vocational ambitions of young people in the
city of Hyderabad, India. We worked with CfBT Education Trust and
The Promise
Foundation.
Our partner in Hyderabad, CfBT
Education Trust, runs 100 schools in and around the city.
Over the years, they heard from local employers that recent school
leavers need to have a broad range of skills. Whilst the young
people leaving CfBT schools often have good technical knowledge and
excellent literacy and numeracy skills, local employers felt their
soft ‘employability’ skills, such as team work or communication
skills, were less well defined.
Furthermore, in a rapidly developing city like Hyderabad, there are
a growing number of job opportunities, and employers require people
to work in these newer industries. There were three identified
problems here: firstly, that local young people are often unaware
of the job opportunities in these new industries; secondly, they
are unfamiliar with the skills that employers require; and thirdly,
young people do not know much about the vocational programmes
available after completing school that may deliver training in
these skills.
The situation is made all the more difficult as school teachers do
not always have the requisite industry knowledge to impart
appropriate training, and parents, as the key influence on their
children’s career and learning choices, are often keen for their
children to follow more academic training routes after school,
rather than vocational learning pathways.
For this reason CSD, CfBT and the Promise Foundation agreed to work
together on a project with two central aims:
- Supporting Hyderabad employers in recruiting
people with the necessary skills by engaging employers in the
learning provided and encouraging them to inform learners of what
they offer.
Enabling learners to make informed decisions about their future by
equipping them with careers guidance for learning and life.
We did this by delivering a structured skills development project
that had three major components.
1.
Research
CSD and CfBT arranged focus groups with
three groups of stakeholders: local employers, teachers and young
people still in school. For employers, we asked them what
skills they felt their industries needed and whether they felt
young people knew enough about these career options and skills
requirements. The teachers were asked for their perceptions of
young people’s skills needs and how their schools could best
support young people find future employment. The employers
confirmed that in their experience school leavers are less familiar
with employability skills and vocational options and the teachers
and employers agreed that they would be would be willing to work
together to support young learners gain this information and
advice. Finally, our interviews with young learners established
that they had a willingness to learn about employability skills and
employment opportunities in vocational sectors.
2. Preparing for careers guidance
training
The evidence from the focus groups provided
us with a better understanding of the skills needs of young people
from the perspectives of employers, teachers and learners. This was
used by the partner organisations (CSD, the Promise Foundation and
CfBT) to develop the materials needed to deliver careers
counselling to the young people.
Working together, CSD, the Promise Foundation and CfBT developed a
framework for recruiting a small group of teachers from seven
schools who would be capable of delivering careers guidance to
their learners. The teachers all work in the CfBT schools and
had permission from their school Principal to participate.
Also, to share some of our learning from the research with parents,
young people and other schools, CSD attended an industry careers
fair in Hyderabad and used this as an opportunity to talk with
these groups.
3. Delivery of careers guidance training
The
Promise Foundation specialises in the Jiva programme, which
provides training for teachers in careers guidance and
counselling. Jiva means ‘life’ – demonstrating the Promise
Foundation’s belief in the strong link between an individual’s life
and their career.
In March 2009, the Promise Foundation delivered an intensive 10 day
training programme to the selected teachers. The teachers
were taught how to collect information about local vocational
education and training programmes available to young people on
leaving school, how to engage with local employers and how to teach
young people about employability skills.
By piloting the project with a small number of teachers and
schools, the partner organisations wanted to test the
approach. One year on from the teachers’ careers guidance and
counselling training, an impact assessment of the programme is
currently being conducted to establish the benefits of the training
to the teachers, their schools, employers and young people.
For more information on this project, please contact: kate.shoesmith@skillsdevelopment.org
School children discuss their aspirations with CSD at the careers
fair in Hyderabad.