184 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Out of the 6,000 surplus trainees, civil industry has only taken 3,000. Indeed, they prefer to employ untrained workmen in the expectation that they will acquire the necessary skill and training in the course of employment or as apprentices. This reluctance to employ the trainees from our technical training centres may be due to various causes. I have heard of complaints that our training is inadequate. Civil industry insists on their technical personnel possessing a higher degree of skill than can be provided by our Scheme, in which we attempted—no doubt under the pressure of war—to give technical training in 8 months which before the war took 5 years.
I am, however, satisfied that it is not at all necessary that a training scheme should run the full length of a five-year course in order to satisfy the requirements of civil industry. Experience gained by wartime technical training schemes in other countries shows that with intensive training semi-skilled men can be quickly trained for most industries.
Industry’s Responsibility
If, therefore, the training imparted under the Technical Training Scheme is supplemented by further ‘biased’ training, the final product should be acceptable to civil industry. I am, however, prepared to admit that there are faults in our Training Scheme. I am also prepared to accept any reasonable changes that may be suggested to make our trainees passable to Industry. But unless Industry agrees to absorb our trainees, there is no hope of a technical training scheme being made a success in this country. Industry therefore should note that a very heavy responsibility lies on its shoulders.
You, gentlemen, know the needs of industry better than I do. All I can say is, that if the Scheme is to succeed it must have the cooperation of employers and workers in determining its future. We have no time to lose or else we may find that we have only won the war, but done nothing for the peace.
As I have already said we have two questions to deal with :
(1) To find employment for trainees who will be discharged from the Army after the war is over and for trainees who are completing the prescribed courses of training, (2) To revise the scheme for technical training as a part of the Post-War Plan of Industrial Reconstruction. These are two distinct questions and we propose to tackle them separately. That is