Industry Funded Learn as you Work Model for School Leavers

25000 students per annum on industry funded part time degree course with job assurance. End of 4 years, students will have 4 years of work experience, a degree and job in hand!!! Employers have innovative workers at affordable pay, low cost of training and 4 years of guaranteed service!!!

Solution:

School leavers are trained on up-to-date industry prepared ICT curriculum.  Industry to partly fund the ICT degrees and students to work for the companies for a stipend over a period of 4 years.  Industry is blessed with young innovative workers at minimal cost serving them for guaranteed 4 years.  At the end of the term, students have earned a degree, 4 years of experience and will have a job in hand!!!  The model offers perhaps the best in the world in terms of equal opportunity job oriented training.

How it addresses the challenge:

Industry has a control over the skills taught to students, hence latest and most relevant skills can be taught to students.  As the upskilling of kids is funded by the industry, even the poorest kid will have equal opportunity to succeed.  As an added benefit, industry is gifted with guaranteed service of young innovators and minimal cost.

If Scaled:

If scaled, it offers the greatest opportunity to youth irrespective of their income to succeed in the ever changing digital economy

1. In ever-changing technology landscape, ICT Skills have limited shelf life.  Such skills are best learned as you work.  If not what you learn becomes irrelevant by the time the degree is completed.

2. Most Sri Lankan youth cannot afford an ICT degree.  Funding by the industry will open doors.

3. ICT industry has huge scarcity of trained labor and the cost of labor is on the rise.  The model provides cost effective workers who are innovative and gives you guaranteed period of service.

4. Training centers now carry out outdated training.  Industry-led curriculums will make trainings job oriented

My company has tried this scholarship model with several batches of students.  After 4 years of the term, it was a great feeling as the youngsters have become as good as our general staff.  After 4 years, they have earned the degrees have 4 years of experience and we happily absorbed them as permanent staff.  It really works and the youth who went through the model can be interviewed.

Establishing best of the kind learn as you work model for youth irrespective of their income level and will create a large resource pool of ICT workforce who can serve the world. 

Annually, 10,000 youth who cannot afford to obtain an ICT degree will get the opportunity to enter into future market place.

Sri Lanka government has more than 400 training centers across the country offering free vocational training.  ICT Skills council has been entrusted to upgrade courses and align as per industry requirement.  Industry likes the proposed tried and tested model and are ready to offer scholarships to students.

Ministry of Skills to provide the statistics of number of enrollments for the scheme - 15000 Students are on the model annually

Track the details of Scholarships offered - Average cost of young innovative workforce becomes less than 250 USD per month

Measured against the national skill gap analysis report. - Skill Gap in the country is met

It is a tried and tested model and is a win-win-win  for youth and employers and country and helps preparing workforce for future.  Training delivery will heavily use latest digital technology such as e-learning to make the trainings consistent and of high quality.  The solution offers youth equal opportunity to succeed irrespective of gender, income levels, language etc.

World is at a window of opportunity with largest ever population of youth.  Future success of each country depends on how well you harness the true potential of youth.  We solve the global issue of engaging youth with industry at earliest possible age and give them job opportunities in the future world in a more or less guaranteed model and provides underserved communities equal opportunity to succeed in the technology world. 

Solution will be deployed through national network of training centers under Ministry of Skills.  Ministry of Skills has authorized us as the skills council to launch such industry oriented trainings in their centers across the country.  We will partner with degree offering private and government institutes so that the kids can realize their "Degree" dreams.

The model is sustained by the industry as it is a win-win for both youth and employer.

1. Number of companies offering scholarships

2. Training the trainers in the national training centers

https://www.regional-tvet-conference-myanmar.org/en/article/71.labor-markets-and-skills-in-the-digital-era.html

The success of the model depends on how many scholarships can be offered.  While industry will partly fund it, we would need additional funding to cover the full scholarship for underserved communities.

Ministry of Skills, TVEC, VTA, DTET and Industry

none that we can think of