Union HRD Minister Inaugurated the National Workshop on Skilling India

The Union HRD Minister MM Pallam Raju inaugurated the National Workshop on Skilling India for the Next Decade through NVEQF (National Vocational Education Qualification. Framework) in New Delhi on 30 September 2013. It is important to note that India is aiming to increase the percentage of the workforce which has received formal skills through vocational education and training from 12.0 percent at present to 25.0 percent by 2017.

The inaugural function on NVEQF was organised by AICTE, the apex body for making and maintaining the norms of technical education in the country, along with the Ministry of HRD.

For achieving this target, the Public-Private Partnership in financing, service delivery and provision of workspaces and training of trainers need to be promoted to meet the demand and supply gap in the field of skill development. The objective of Skill Development is to create a workforce empowered with upgraded skills, knowledge and internationally recognized qualifications to gain access to employment and ensure India’s competitiveness in the dynamic global market.

The skill building or skill development in India is derived from the changing demographic profiles in India, i.e., China, Western Europe, and North America. These changing demographic profiles indicate that India has a unique 20 to 25 years’ window of opportunity called demographic dividend.

Four major initiatives have been taken by the Union Government of India. These include:

• Of the 1896 government-run Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), in all of them the Ministry of Labour decided to introduce a PPP-based model of reform in 2007.
• About 2000 privately owned industrial training centres, now called private ITIs, existed in 2007, the number of which has grown to 6498 in India by 2011.
• The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) is supporting the setting up of profit-making companies, since 2010, to promote skill up-gradation.
• The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has launched a National Vocational Education Qualification Framework (NVEQF), in the country with the involvement of private sector industry in the provision of vocational education and training.