Australia TAFEs may miss out on big share of India's market: Study

MELBOURNE: Australia has been warned that it could miss out on the big share of Asia's largest skills training market, especially India, which has been estimated to grow up to USD 50 billion by 2022.


According to a report commissioned by Australia India Institute (AII) here has found that India is already one of the largest and fastest growing education markets in the world.

"Education spending ranks second only to outlays on food for the average Indian middle class family. Australia, with its robust, best in class VET providers, and institutional framework and quality assurance systems, is well placed to garner a large share of this market among consumers who cannot afford to be trained overseas. Yet Australian providers lag behind their competitors from the UK, Germany and Switzerland in this field," it said.

To gain access to Indian market, Australian Training And Further Education (TAFEs) should unbundle their high quality training courses and offer simpler training modules at lower cost to students, the report said.

"With public sector funding for VET providers under pressure, serving Asia's massive skills training demand could be important to securing the TAFE sector's long-term future," it said.

The report 'Skills Challenge: Australia and India's Skills Training Needs' has been published in AII's latest occasional paper 'Fearless NAdia' and has been authored by Prasenjit Kundu.

The report has proposed several steps to capitalise the Indian market which is said to have 25 per cent of global workforce by 2020 with an average age of its citizens to be at 29 years.

It recommended a Centre of Excellence to be established in India, with Australian TAFE educators and trainers heading over to help train new Registered Training Organisations to teach Indians.

"Establish a Centre of Excellence serving Australian VET providers who wish to deliver skills training in India. Initial focus to be on engineering and service skills in mining and construction, early childhood education, childcare, and health and aged care, expanding eventually to cover all five skill verticals as per the agreed bilateral charter," it said.

"Tasked with enabling collaboration opportunities with Indian partners including industry and NSDC partners, the COE should receive initial seed funding from government for three years, then proceed as a fee-for-service, low capital- intensive organisation with a lean cost structure and a small in-house team well versed in the Indian business landscape and the Australian VET sector's structures and cultures," the report suggested.



"Expedite implementation of the Australia-India Education Council's mandate of creating a bilateral framework to facilitate prior skills recognition, Focus Australian and Indian government efforts on creating operating enablers for commercial VET collaborations to flourish, Invest in building 'Brand VET Australia' in India, including timely public and industry information campaigns," the report further said.

"Australia, with its robust, best-in-class VET providers, and institutional framework and quality assurance systems, is well placed to garner a large share of this rapidly growing market among consumers who cannot afford to be trained overseas," the report said.

It also cited a recommendation of the 2009-10 Knight Review into overseas student programs, which found a suitable, cheaper alternative to bringing Indian students to Australia study was essentially to take the courses to India.

"Over 80 per cent of large corporations in India have to invest in in-house training capability to equip new staff with the necessary skills. India needs manifold growth and multiple partners in Vocational Education and Training (VET) to develop better skills training practices and regimes capable of producing the next generation of skilled workers," the report said.

"Australia, with its robust, best in class VET providers, and institutional framework and quality assurance systems, is well placed to garner a large share of this rapidly growing market among consumers who cannot afford to be trained overseas. Yet Australian providers lag behind their competitors from the UK, Germany and Switzerland in this field," it noted.

Commenting further on the Indian market, it said over 700 million Indians were estimated to be of working age by 2022.

"Out of these, more than 500 million require some kind of vocational or skills development training. Out of the targeted 500 million, approximately 17-20 per cent need high-quality training. A conservative estimate of the market size of the training needs for this 90 to 100 million-strong workforce is in the order of USD 50 billion," the report said.

"To meet this daunting challenge, India needs international partnerships, and is now actively seeking them.

"It noted that while striving for a foothold in India, Australian TAFEs have failed to communicate their advantages effectively.

"A new model for engagement that is India-specific, and affordable to Indian students is needed. This will challenge and perhaps even redefine Australia's 'comfort zone'. The Australian notion of 'Engage, Replicate, Pilot and Scale' must adapt if it's to survive Indian realities.

"In a country with a population sixty times that of Australia's numbers are larger and time frames to a visible return on investment are longer," it said.