Sumit Kumar: employability boost

Sumit Kumar is the New Delhi-based Chief Strategy Officer of TeamLease Degree Apprenticeship (TLDA, estb.2014; headcount: 1,000), a constituent firm of TeamLease Services Ltd, the country’s premier personnel placements company which places skilled technicians including accountants, data entry/back office, BPO/customer care, front office/receptionists, hospitality managers, chefs, chauffeurs etc in India Inc and MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) countrywide.

TLDA is a public-private partnership with the Union ministry of skill development & entrepreneurship and All India Council for Technical Education, and bills itself “India’s fastest-growing apprenticeship programme”. It places college/university students in companies and firms to acquire industry-specific skills for periods ranging from six months to three years. During their apprenticeship, interns are paid monthly stipends ranging between Rs.13,000-15,000 under a 100 percent employer-funded model.

Since it was established a decade ago, TLDA has partnered with 22 universities (including its TeamLease Skill University, Gujarat) and 300 colleges, 150 field recruiters, and multiple government agencies, to place 1 million apprentices in over 150 job roles. Moreover, the firm has recorded an excellent transition rate of 98 percent into formal employment, with 40 percent employed in the firm/company in which they apprenticed.

Newspeg. In July, Kumar was in Kolkata to finalise outreach programmes and promote TLDA in West Bengal and eastern India.

History. An alumnus of University of Jammu, Kumar began his career in 1999 with Feedback Ventures, followed by stints with Marriott International Hotels, and Monster.com, where he acquired 12 years of industry experience before his appointment at TLDA in 2014.

The TLDA apprenticeship programme is open to graduate, postgraduate, and diploma students/graduates, and offers work integrated learning programs and apprenticeships under the Union government’s National Apprenticeship Training Scheme and National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme, as well as the recently launched PM Internship Scheme.

Direct talk. “The USP of our degree apprenticeship programmes is that they combine practical academic programmes with on-the-job training to allow students to acquire hands-on workplace experience while they are in higher education. And encouragingly, 24-25 percent of our apprentices are women, significantly contributing to gender diversity and inclusivity in the workforce,” he says.

Future plans. With the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 mandating degree apprenticeships that combine on-the-job training and academic education and a skilling, upskilling and reskilling fever raging countrywide (see EW cover story, August), Kumar is optimistic about the growth and development of TLDA.

“The Central government is planning to formalise and extend apprenticeship tenures to a structured seven-year period starting from secondary school, thereby aligning traditional academics with practical on-the-job learning. This formal integration will significantly boost employability of the world’s largest children and youth population. Our target is to mobilise and train 2 million youth in the next five years for apprenticeship programmes,” says Kumar.

God speed!
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)