Anand Hariharan
India has launched an ambitious National Skill Development Program.
Skill, unlike knowledge, is a hard thing to develop - unless, as Gladwell says,
the rubicon of 10,000 hours is crossed, your skill would never be as sharp as it
could be. If that is so, what better way to learn a skill than from your early
childhood itself from your parents and family.
India, from Vedic times, has had a rich tradition of nurturing family
skills. In my family, music and knowledge of Sanskrit literature are a given.
You belong because you are skilled.
India's leading business families are doing so well because they take
care to hone their family skills - talk to any Marwari or Chettiar family - they
know the true value of "Sikka" (Infy seems to have discovered it too.). The same
has percolated the Kapoors, the Bangash, the Sikkil and several thousands of
Indian families. Lawyers and Doctors have for generations understood the value
of preserving and passing on the family skill of medicine - if only for the
reason that a library and a practice are hard to rebuild once lost.
This tradition of family skill was one of the two pillars of the
Varna(-Ashrama) Dharma - though sadly, this degenerated over the centuries since
Manu Smriti. In my view, one of the key pillars of the National Skill
Development Program has to be the recognition and rejuvenation of this
tradition.
In the last several decades, Indian middle class more or less
believed that all skill was either engineering or medicine - while it created a
large base of professionals in both these areas, we lost out on quality. Most
engineers, like myself, didn't leave engineering profession by choice - it was
just that in the circle of my family and friends that i grew up there wasn't
anyone practicing engineering - so internships and jobs were hard to get.
Needless to say we ended up in software and then on to the business schools. And
what did we have in our 'government service' families around business - hardly
any knowledgebase. So a generation of multi-skilled people like me were created
who are building skills after entering a profession.
When i ask myself, of all skills which is my strongest skill the
answer that emerges is - English writing. Why? Because my father excelled in it.
Legend has it that he wrote Indira Gandhi's speeches once upon a time. I admired
him for his ability to write and speak English - he was second to none in my
world. Which boy of 5 would know "honorificabilitudinitatibus"
unless you dad told you about it. So the Wren & Martin and the Glimpses of
World History dotted my childhood - without any prodding from school i knew more
history than my teachers.
Coming back to the point - while one should not and cannot impose
skills on to one's progeny, the least that Indian families can do is to identify
skills they cherish in their families the most and expose their children to it.
The power of family skill can never be matched through formal trainings -
children absorb what they see their parents and family members doing day after
day. This is a tradition we need to reinvent if our skill development program is
to be successful. Depth of skill is vital if India is to realize it's goal of
"Zero Defect" or as we used to say back in EY - "Quality in Everything We
Do".
Our education system, given it's current limitations, will take
several decades before it can deliver depth in skills. Knowledge is gained
through training, Skill comes only with practice or Sadhana. The best way
forward then might be to reinvent the "Varna Dharma". (We shall talk about the
"Ashrama Dharma" some other time.)
What do you think?
