Skilling India: An Aspirational Challenge
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Institutional alignments:
Skill develop-
ment and entrepreneurship efforts across
the country have been highly fragmented
so far. Recognising the need and urgency
of quickly coordinating the efforts of all
concerned stakeholders the Department of
Skill Development and Entrepreneurship
was created which was later made into a full-
fledged Ministry of Skill Development and
Entrepreneurship on 9th November 2014. The
National Skill Development Agency (NSDA),
an autonomous body that was created with
the mandate to co-ordinate and harmonise
the skill development activities in the coun-
try, has been made a part of the Department
of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship,
along with the NSDC, 33 SSCs, NSDF and the
National Skill Development Trust (NSDT).
To create further convergence between the
Vocational Training system through ITIs and
the new Skill Initiatives of the government,
two verticals from Directorate General of
Employment and Training (DGET)—DDG
(Training) andDDG (ApprenticeshipTraining)
have been transferred to the Ministry of Skill
Development and Entrepreneurship on 16th
April 2015. Thus, the major institutions/
departments involved in skill development now
are under one ministry.
Revision of the National Policy on Skill
Development:
The National Policy on Skill
Development (NPSD) was first formulated in
2009. It has been reviewed and the draft new
policy has been formulated in July 2015. The
policy addresses the key obstacles in the skilling
and entrepreneurship landscape, including low
aspirational value, non-integration with formal
education, lack of focus on outcomes, quality
of training infrastructure and trainers, etc.
Further, the policy aims to align supply with
demand, bridge existing skill gaps, promote
industry engagement, operationalise a quality
assurance framework, leverage technology and
promote apprenticeship to tackle the issues in
the skill space.
Improving standards of skilling at state level
:
NSDC during the year has signed MoUs with
several states for collaboration in skill develop-
ment. A sub-group of Chief Ministers on Skill
Development have been constituted byNational
Institute for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog
to suggest measures for strengthening State Skill
Development Missions to enhance capacity and
improve standards of skilling at
the state level.
New schemes launched
: PMKVY is a Flagship
outcome-based skill training scheme of the
newly created Ministry of Skill Development
and Entrepreneurship launched in 2015. The
scheme has an outlay of
`
1,500 crore, with
a target to cover 24 lakh persons in its first
year of implementation, (including 10 lakh
under Recognition of Prior Learning). The
training under PMKVY is based on the NOSs/
QPs developed by the Sector Skill Councils to
improve employability of the skilledmanpower.
To promote placements, the scheme also has a
component of incentives linked to placement
of people skilled under the scheme. The scheme
will be implemented through NSDC.
The Ministry of Rural Development has
started a new version of the existing Aajeevika
Skills Scheme as the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya
Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU–GKY). The
programme aims to provide placement linked
training to one million youth by the year 2017.
The Ministry of Labour & Employment
has launched a new scheme ‘Establishment
of National Career Service’. The national web
portal that is being established as part of the
scheme will facilitate users to register and seek/
access counselling and employment related
services while industries will be encouraged to
register and post vacancies on the NCS portal
and access the database of registered users.
Rationalisation of the Skill Development
Schemes of theGovernment of India:
The wide
variations in the norms for costs, duration of
training, outcomes, monitoring requirements
etc., across about 70 skill development schemes
being run by the 20 Ministries/Departments
of the GoI is causing problems at the imple-
mentation stage. Based on the Committee set
up to make recommendations on rationalisa-
tion of these schemes, the government has
approved Common Norms in July 2015 to
rationalise more than 70 skill development
programmes being implemented by different
Central Ministries/Departments. The Common
Norm addresses the whole spectrum of skill
development processes and systems including
inputs, outputs, funding/cost norms, third
party certification and assessment, monitoring/
Box 6.5:
Key initiatives taken in the years 2014 and 2015
