Socio-Economic Empowerment through IT Education

1. Socio-Economic Empowerment through IT Education K. Narayanan Associate Professor, Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, IIT Bombay E-mail: knn@hss.iitb.ac.in

2. Presentation • IT Education • Public Support to IT Education • Developed and Developing Countries • Indian Experience • Role of State, Business Houses & NGOs • IT Education and Socio-Economic Development

3. Role of Formal Education • Formal Education is necessary but not sufficient for efficiently using technologies. • Technology specific skills and learning are as much important as formal education is. • Increasing the skill content of the potential workforce opens up a wide range of opportunities.

4. IT Education • Better capabilities, especially in micro-electronic applications and use of information technology, for job-seeking brings about a change in the socio-economic structure of the society. • The focus is more on the socially and economically underprivileged in developing countries.

5. Whose Responsibility is it? • Can the skill formation be the responsibility of the govt. alone? • Role of Market? • Developed countries appear to worry about it more than the developing countries.

6. Reasons for Market Failure • (a) information gaps and uncertainty where the individuals may not know of the future value of investments in education and training or of particular skills, and they may not know what skills are needed in future • (b) even if the individuals can forecast the probability of getting returns on skill investments, they may prefer more certain short-term returns to available jobs • (c) individuals may not be able to finance their learning costs and foregone earning, especially with their inability to afford two square meals a day and • (d) high costs of educational services provided, especially in the case of private institutions and • (e) danger of bureaucratic and rigid management especially in a publicly funded training institution.

7. Consensus • There is a broad consensus of appreciation on the role of Non-Governmental Organizations, Private Charitable Trusts and Educational Investment of Business Houses in fostering the growth of supply in computer educated and qualified personnel.

8. Objectives • (1) takes up the case of subsidized computer education programme of a particular Trust Organization, and aims to analyse the socio economic impact of such subsidized computer education programme, especially among the socially and economically under-privileged. • (2) analysis carried out on the basis of information given in the enrolment form available with the training centres as well as the response of the beneficiaries. • (3) compares the socio economic impact of this programme in select centres in two States of India: namely Maharastra and Rajasthan

9. Three Major Studies • ILO (1998) observed that the demand for professionals and technicians has increased in all countries, as their analytical, cognitive and behavioural skills equip them better to adapt to more sophisticated technology. • Tomlinson (1999) shows how these skills are enabling skilled workers in the UK to move into knowledge-intensive sectors more readily than worker without such skills. • Skilled and experienced individuals can provide an economy with greater technological capabilities for fostering growth in output and social welfare [Bhalla, 1996].

10. Methodology • Several questions pertaining to the socio-economic profile of the beneficiary households, the educational and vocational backgrounds, assessments of the training and infrastructure facilities available at the respective centres, course content and overall rating of the training received are recorded with the help of a questionnaire designed for the beneficiary level information acquisition.

11. Methodology..cont.. • To establish the socio-economic context that the beneficiaries of the computer training courses being taught by the Sterlite foundation, several items of household level information are incorporate within the questionnaire for beneficiary feedback including household size, head of household education and occupation, household income, residence locality and housing status, consumer durables ownership: television, refrigerator, two wheeler, car, personal computer, and telephone connection. • A total of 264 beneficiaries have been incorporated as the respondents of the data acquisition exercise after having scrutinised and weeding out of incomplete and mutual inconsistencies.

12. Socio-economic impact • The specific socio-economic impact of such computer training is viewed in terms of: • a) The increased skill set available to the beneficiary and • b) Gainful employment and educational opportunities resulting from the training.

13. Other attributes • Perceptions of the benefit acquired by the beneficiaries is contrasted with the personal attributes such as educational attainment, communication skill and Socio-Economic status in order to analyse the observed variability within the socio-economic attributes as also the variability between Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

14. Table 1 Structure of Computer Training Centers: Maharastra

15. Table 2 Location of and Infrastructure Facilities in the Training Centres: Maharastra

16. Table 3 Dropouts and Placement: Maharastra

17. Table 4 Capacities and Utilisation: Maharastra

18. Table 5 Structure of Computer Training Centers: Rajasthan

19. Table 6 Location of and Infrastructure Facilities in the Training Centers: Rajasthan

20. Table 7: Dropouts and Placement: Rajasthan

21. Table 8 Capacities and Utilisation: Rajasthan

22. Table 9.1

23. Table 9.2

24. Figure 1

25. Figure 2

26. Figure 3

27. Figure 4

28. Figure 5

29. Figure 6

30. Figure 7

31. Table 10: Age Structure: Maharastra (All Figures are in Percentages)

32. Table 11: Age Structure: Rajasthan (All Figures are in Percentages)

33. Figure 8

34. Figure 9

35. Figure 10

36. Figure 11

37. Table 12: Educational Level: Maharastra (All Figures are in Percentages)

38. Table 13: Educational Level: Rajasthan (All Figures are in Percentages)

39. Figure 12

40. Figure 13

41. Figure 14

42. Figure 15

43. Table 14: Income Groups: Maharashtra (All Figures are in Percentages)

44. Table 15: Income Groups: Rajasthan (All Figures are in Percentages)

45. Figure 16

46. Figure 17

47. Figure 18

48. Figure 19

49. Table 16: Occupational Structure: Maharashtra

50. Table 17: Occupational Structure: Rajasthan (All Figures are in Percentages)