• Recommendations

Various Committees have time to time reiterated the importance of the Woekers Education Scheme in India and recommeandated their suggestions for its improvement. Below are some of the recommendations of the high level committees on Workers Education.

Workers Education Review Committe

The report of the Committee was received by the Government by 20th July 1975. About the importance of Workers Education the Committee had remarked:

“ The Committee is convinced that education of workers is not only desirable but very necessary. There is need for well-organized and systematic education of workers not only in organized industries, but also in the unorganized industries, including the rural sector.”

The recommendations of the Review Committee are of far reaching importance. Government of India have accepted nearly all of them and they have been implemented.

 

Estimates Committee

The Estimates Committee of the Parliament studied the Workers Education Programme and submitted its report in 1971. The Committee in their observations had opined that

  1. Trade unions in India should take increasing interest and initiative in the furtherance of workers education progrmme
  2. Public Sector should give a lead in the matter of extending full co-operation and providing facilities to workers Education Scheme
  3. Considering the huge employment potential of workers in the industries field, the Scheme needs rapid expansion.

Various recommendations were made by the Committee and most of them have been implemented.

 

National Commission on Labour

The National Commission on Labour, to which the Committee referred to above had submitted its report and recommendations, generally endorsed them. In its report submitted to the Government of India in 1969, the Commission observed:

“ There is evidence to show that the beneficiaries of the Workers Education Scheme have shown more interest in union activities than others who have not had this education”.

 

Committee on Workers Education

The National Commission on Labour appointed by Government of India set up a Committee on Workers Education in 1967, “to carry out a comprehensive assessment of the Workers Education Programme”. This was the first time a high level committee was examining the working of the Scheme and assessing its impact. According to the findings of the Committee:

" The need and usefulness of Workers Education has been amply established. The trade union representatives who met the committee admitted that the scheme had created a general consciousness about the need of Workers Education and had provoked the workers to thick for themselves. The scheme has been successful in turning out an enlightened worker aware of his duties and responsibilities as a citizen"

 

Review Committee of the Board

" The Committee found that the workers trained by the Central Board for Workers Education displayed a sense of responsibility as members of trade unions. There was visible impact of Workers Education on the trade union movement in India and the unions on their part showed awareness of utilizing trained workers for higher responsibility. A good number of worker-teachers had, after training, improved their position in their respective unions an quite a few were elevated to higher positions in civic bodies. There was improvement in the attendance and trained workers showed a sense of responsibility on the job. There was reduction in absenteeism and decrease in the frivolous demands by the workers. Punctuality and sense of responsibility had increased. They became productivity-minded. They participated more effectively in the Works Committees and Joint Management Councils."

 

Study by ILO Expert-Rrof. Charies Orr

The Workers Education Scheme, which has been conceived to meet the immediate educational needs of Indian Labour, is being run efficiently o the administrative side. It is already showing encouraging result in improving the process of collective bargaining, and also inter-union relations and in making workers more conscious of their legal rights and of their obligations to the national economic welfare.

 

Mr.P.G.H. Hopkins, Principal, Fircroft College, Birmingham, U.K.1980)

“ I have seen enough to convince me of the high degree of success the C.B.W.E. has already had towards achieving its admittedly limited aims. I have been impressed by the high academic quality and the dedicated enthusiasm of the full-time professional staff. The success of three-tier plan rests firmly on their professional base and it would appear that the selection processes applied have given the necessary amount of emphasis to interest and personality, as well as to academic attainments. The efficient working of the scheme at all three tiers is again the result of careful planning and of systematic experiment.”

 

Specialist from U.S.A

In August 1964 Mrs. Virginia B.Hart, a Workers Education Specialist from USA observed the Scheme. She had the following to say about it:

“  The reports of active union leadership assumed by worker-teachers upon completion of their three months course bear out the leadership training functions of the course. Involvement of such large number of workers in attending unit level classes is remarkable. Securing the co-operation of management in the private and public sector to finance the employees during their tra

 

Third Plan

The Third Five-Year Plan started in 1961. In the Plan document, there is the following observation about the Scheme:

After completion of the preparatory stage, the programme of Workers Education had made a good start and was being widely appreciated”. It was further stated that “the training courses for Worker-Teachers and Workers had helped to raise the self-confidence of the workers; increased their ability to take advantage of protective labour laws; reduced their dependence upon outsiders and inculcated in them an urge for material and economic welfare.”

 

USAID Chief Mr McNamara Chief Labour Division ISAID

The Workers Education Scheme is an interesting and on the whole successful experiment in Workers Education conducted under Governmental auspices. It is a large scale co-operative venture between Government, Employer and Trade Unions that is perhaps unique among modern industrial countries. It represents a solution to the problem of Workers Education, adopted to meet India’s specific needs and conditions.