Skill Development outside the Formal Education System: A Study of Informal IT Sector in Delhi, India

• In Event: Student Learning and Experiences in South Asia

Proposal

Purpose
This paper traverses the experiences of the employees and employers working in informal IT sector, also known as the urban poor sector. The paper contributes towards the understanding and importance of informal learning as it teaches us many skills only by observing. The study is based on informal Information Technology (IT) sector at Nehru Place which is the South Asia’s biggest informal IT market in India. By interviewing 84 employees and 54 employers working in informal IT sector this study exhibit that skill development takes place outside the formal education system through informal learning methods. The informal learning takes place on the job as an employee or apprentice, passes from family and friends or are learned through institutions. More than 90 percent of Indian economy is ruled by informal sector, therefore it certainly becomes important to study and understand the skill development process in this sector. The findings will proffer the policy makers and educational administrators to take necessary actions in order to improve the education system and training.

Background
India lags far behind in imparting skill training as compared to other countries. Only 10% of the total workforce in the country receives some kind of skill training (2% with formal training and 8% with informal training) (FICCI, 2012). Further, 80% of the entrants into the workforce do not have the opportunity for skill training (ILO, 2011). According to latest Periodic Labour Force survey 2017-18, 91.9% of the persons in the age group of 15-59 years have not received any sort of skill training. The lack of opportunities for work, the growing population pressure, the depressing conditions of people living in rural areas and in search of job for better economic opportunities; are forced for outsized level migration towards urban areas (Francis, 1981).
It is reasonably well established that in India, formal skill acquisition, through VET systems, has been hardly successful in helping those in the informal sector to get jobs, even at the very low levels at which they have been provided. Boehm (1998) adds that a market-driven system which allows the consumer to choose education and training courses offered by competing suppliers might tailor training programmes more closely to the world of work than an exclusively public sector based education and training system.
The reason for this research study is the skill training provided by institutions is not job oriented. The training courses are selected by the learners is based on the availability of seats rather than their competencies. There is a lack of awareness about certain trades, with only a few trades attracting the majority of the learners. It is difficult for private institutions that impart the latest skill development training to set up on account of various constraints and regulations also poor urban learners are unable to join courses due to high training costs.

Methodology
The intent of this research is to present the expansive understanding of the skill development process in informal IT sector, one of the fastest expanding sector, and the experiences of the workers (employers and employees) working in informal labour market. I adopted Amit Mitra’s (2002) and Matthias Pilz’s (2015) approach to skill formation in informal sector in India. The study follows a mixed method approach to have a rich and thick description of the experiences of the workers engaged in informal market. The sampling method used for data collection is purposive and snowball sampling and the paper follows mixed method research.

Data collection and Analysis
The data was collected through semi-structured interview schedule divided in three major fractions i.e. (a) profile of employee & employer; (b) employee & employer’s background in employment and (c) experience of employee and employer in the informal IT sector. In order to understand the motivation for joining IT sector questions were asked like when & why you decided to join informal IT sector? How do you find the training system? How you social network helped you in getting this job? What are the pros and cons of working in informal sector? Do you have any knowledge about government provisions or schemes for skill training? How formal education helped you in getting this job? What are the skills you learned while working? What are the changes you observed over the years of your working? Apart from this I inquired about their working conditions and I also observed few firms for several days in order to understand their work culture, challenges and their daily transactions with work.
I analyzed quantitative data through frequency, percentage and correlation methods. Qualitative data was analyzed through content analysis.

Findings
With this contrasting study the author’s findings elucidate that the employees working in informal IT sector are skilled with explicit technical knowledge of repairing and are proficient of doing multiple job roles like retailing, handling business and many more. Most of the workers working in informal IT sector are graduates from stream like Science, Commerce, Arts and Humanities etc however job specific skills, majorly technical skills, are not learned by workers through formal education and training system. There is a mismatch between the labour market demand and supply. The formal education and training system is not adequate enough to provide specific job oriented skills.
The informal IT sector in India is also a male dominated sector where females are coming forward but are often restricted to job roles like accountancy, receptionist, retailing and customer care. The majority of male workers portray female workers as not competent and unfit for the technical IT work. The author suggests that in order to create sustainable job options for workers working in informal IT sector there is an urgent need of market and training analysis for upcoming technological challenges which will require higher order skills and that can be only imparted through skill education and training. The research study also tries to highlight the current job trends, challenges and future of work in IT related sector.

Author

• Disha Singh, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi, India