New Delhi: The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) has undertaken various awareness campaigns, workshops, and digital seminars from time to time at national, regional, state, district, and block levels with the support of more than 25,000 skill centres and institutes for promotion of various skill development initiatives of the Government. Besides, National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), Sector Skill Councils (SSCs), State Governments, State Skill Development Missions (SSDMs) and District Skill Committees also undertake awareness campaigns through the Press Information Bureau (PIB), and print and electronic media including social media under the aegis of Skill India Mission.
All these initiatives aim to make skills aspirational for the youth. These activities are to ensure skilling aspiration and a continuous process of reskilling, upskilling and multiple skilling. According to Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 envisages curriculum integration of essential subjects and skills in all schools and higher education institutions in a phased manner to provide necessary vocational skills for a variety of occupations along with awareness about the benefits of vocational education.
The Department of School Education and Literacy (Ministry of Education) is implementing the scheme of vocationalization of school education under the umbrella of “Samagra Shiksha” – an integrated scheme for school education, a Centrally Sponsored Scheme. The scheme aims at integrating vocational education with general academic education in all Secondary and Senior Secondary schools, enhancing employability and entrepreneurial abilities of the students, providing exposure to work environment; and generating awareness amongst students about various career options so as to enable them to make choice in accordance with their aptitude, competence and aspirations. The scheme covers government and government aided schools. Under the scheme, 14,435 schools have been approved till AY 2021-22 across the country for integrating vocational education with general education from Class 9th to 12th.
MSDE in coordination with the Ministry of Education has launched the Skill Hubs Initiative (SHI) as a pilot project on 01.01.2022 under central component of PMKVY 3.0 which focuses on introduction of skill training programme in education ecosystem as envisioned in National Education Policy (NEP), 2020. Skill Hubs are nodal skill centres identified to provide skill development and vocational training opportunities to target population segments of school dropouts and out-of-education candidates aged between 15 to 45 years age. As on 30th June 2022, a total of 2,28,302 candidates have been enrolled so far.
The National Skill Development Corporation under the Ministry has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) with eight countries. These are Japan, UAE, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Russia, Finland and Morocco for cooperation in the field of vocational education and training. NSDC has partnered with the Finnish National Agency for Education (EDUFI), Finland to promote and facilitate the exchange of knowledge of new innovations and connect the providers within the vocational education and training sector between the two countries.
The Government of India and the Government of Japan have signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) in January, 2021 on a basic framework for partnership for proper operation of the system pertaining to ‘Specified Skilled Worker.’ Under this MoC, skilled Indian workers from fourteen sectors - Nursing care, building cleaning management, machine parts and tooling industries, industrial machinery industry, electric, electronics and information industries, construction industry, shipbuilding and ship machinery industry, automobile repair and maintenance, aviation industry, accommodation industry, agriculture, fishery and aquaculture, manufacture of food and beverages, and foodservice industry have been identified for enhanced job opportunities for skilled Indian workers in Japan.
Further, MSDE and the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan, Government of Japan, have also signed an MoC inviting candidates from India to Japan under the Technical Intern Training Program (TITP). It aims to transform India’s skill ecosystem by sending and accepting technical interns from India to Japan, thereby enabling Indian industries to imbibe the best practices of Japanese industries. /BI/
