Once Scared, Employers are NOW Prepared to Engage
APPRENTICES
By Advocate H.L. Kumar
Apprentice training is considered the best form of shop floor training and increases employee’s productivity. It also helps employer’s lower employee acquisition costs. The government is likely to allow Indian firms to deploy apprentices in their operations abroad if they so wish and use third-party aggregators such as staffing firms to help scale up apprenticeship training and hiring. It will also reduce regulations and penalty clauses if some firms fail to hire despite promising to do so and shall allow them options to correct any past promises. This means that the amendment will effectively promote self-governance.
Employers should be aware of the Apprentices Act
There was a time when the Apprentices Act provided a penalty of imprisonment for six months of the employers for violation of its provisions which shuddered them even to think of engaging apprentices. Now, these provisions for imprisonment have been removed and also softened. As a result, thereto, more and more employers are engaging apprentices because it is more beneficial and cost-effective for all the employers whether big or small i.e., even employing 4 or more employees. In the amended Rules in the year 2019, the employers have been given the liberty to run the establishment driven optional trades for apprentices instead of only the designated trades notified by the government of India under the Act.
The necessity of the engaging apprentices
Although literacy rates have risen in the last few decades, yet they still remain a fundamental flaw in the education system in India. The curriculum is mostly theory-oriented and fails to provide vocational training required to match up with the current economic environment. Millions and millions of Indian youths should go for the acquisition of skills and there should be a network across the country for this and not the archaic systems. They should acquire the skills which could contribute towards making India a developed country. Whenever such trained apprentices go to any country in the world, their skills must be appreciated.
Curtailing unemployment
Some simple methods could have certainly gone a long way in mitigating the acuteness of unemployment in the country. What is, however, baffling rather shocking is that the government has not been able to take employers on board with regard to the engagement of apprentices under the Apprentice Act of 1961 by clearing their misconceptions and doubts, Let it be understood that apprenticeship is a combination of on-the-job training and related classroom instruction under the supervision of a craft person or trade professional in which workers learn the practical and theoretical aspects of a highly skilled occupation.
Modalities for engaging apprentices
An apprenticeship is a system of training the new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeship also enables practitioners to gain a license to practice in a regulated profession. All establishments having a workforce (regular and contract employees) of 30 or more are mandated to undertake apprenticeship programs in a range from 2.5% -15% of its workforce (including direct contractual employees) every year. For establishments having a workforce between 4-29, this is optional whereas the establishments that have a workforce of 3 or less are not permitted under the Rules to engage apprentices. There are two categories of trades defined under the Apprentices Act, 1961. Designated trades- those notified by the government are referred to as designated trades. Optional trade means any trade or occupation, or any subject field of engineering, non-engineering, technology or vocational training found relevant by an employer as per their requirements, other than the designated trades notified under the Act. Duration of apprenticeship (including basic training) is between 6-24 months for optional trade and 6-36 months for designated trade at the discretion of an establishment. The recent reforms introduced in the Apprentices Rules by the government have made the process of hiring apprentices more convenient for establishments. The stipend reimbursement to the establishment by the government has always been a motivating factor Now that third-party agencies have also been allowed to help find the right candidates, there has been a big boost in hiring apprentices.
The Apprentices Act, 1961 initially envisaged the training of trade apprentices. The Act was amended in 1971 to include training of graduate and diploma engineers as “Graduate” & “Technician” Apprentices. The Act was further amended in 1986 to bring within its purview the waning of the 10-2 vocational stream as “Technician (Vocational)”. Through apprenticeship one becomes skilled in trade or job by learning under people who know the ropes.
Thus, apprentices have the opportunity to earn while they learn, gain real-life experience and improve their job prospects. An apprenticeship allows combining the work and study by mixing on-the-job training with classroom learning. One is employed to do a real job while studying for a formal qualification. By the end of the apprenticeship, one has hopefully gained the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in a chosen career. An establishment with a total strength of 100 can engage a minimum of 3 apprentices and a maximum of 15 apprentices.
Option for the Trades
There are hundreds of different trades from hairdresser to mechanic, electrician to the chef, plumber to cabinet maker etc. One can start the process of becoming an apprentice at any time: at school, just out of school, even when already working or when one is unemployed. As per Act and the Rules, the apprentice and employer enter into a legal agreement called a training cost this lasts until one has completed.
The engagement of apprentices contributes in its own way for the employment generation in the country and also for creating the good employee-employer relationship necessary for the conducive atmosphere for large scale industrialisation. It has taken up this challenge to enlighten the employers that the provisions of the Apprentices Act are far more beneficial to the employers than the job seekers. Needless to reiterate that under the National Apprenticeship Programme, India has over 5 lakh and optional trade apprentices in different industries. This is not comparable in scale with China, for instance, where the number is supposed to be about one crore, or in Japan, where it is about 40 lakhs. Hence the employers have to work shoulder to shoulder with the government in its scheme under the Apprentices Act. This will not only create more jobs but will be a positive step parallel to corporate social responsibility.
Advantages to employers on engaging Apprentices
While employers’ benefit because apprentices work at a lesser cost, the apprentices gain the much-needed hands-on experience at the jobs they desire to hold in the future. Hiring apprentices has been a common practice for ages now in most industries, and the trend continues to grow in India.
The apprenticeship system can play a large part in the task of skill development of the workforce, offering the opportunity to share costs among different parties (employers, individuals, and the government) and to involve governments, employers, and workers in partnerships. The expansion of apprenticeships needs to work alongside other VET developments such as the Sector Skills Councils and the National Vocational Qualification system. In any expansion of the system, quality must be a pre-eminent consideration. For apprentices, an apprenticeship provides a chance to earn an income while learning and to combine theoretical and practical training. Satisfying the aspirations of apprentices must be a central part of any reforms. For employers, an apprenticeship provides a structured form of training that should provide confidence in the quality of people who have completed apprenticeships.
Having moved from the 20th to the 21″ century India has a well-established and regulated apprenticeship system. However, as is the case in many other countries, the modern-day Indian apprenticeship system was laid down in the mid-twentieth century. At that time the economy was very different (for example, greater emphasis on manufacturing), and expectations about work and learning were different. In particular, the expectation that learning would occur only at the start of one’s working life has changed, since that time, throughout much of the world. Other countries have also been grappling with the need to change their apprenticeship systems. In the Anglophone world, Australia (in the 1980s and 1990s) and more recently the UK have been moving to a mass apprenticeship system with coverage (in non-graduate jobs) across all sectors in the economy.
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