Corporate involvement in skilling programs show higher outcomes

As the world comes closer to celebrate the second World Youth Skills Day on 15 July 2017, it is important to highlight results from some of the early efforts since formation of the new Ministry with special focus on skill development and entrepreneurship.

In its effort to increase participation of private sector contribution in skilling, the National Skill Development Corporation in partnership with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, launched a special initiative to solicit participation from both public and private sector companies.

Under this initiative, close to 100 Crores has been committed through the National Skill Development Fund (NSDF), a receptacle for contributions from Government, private sector, public sector and multilateral agencies on projects linked to outcomes.

The POWERGRID Skill Development Project is the first of this kind, signed in January 2015 as a tripartite between POWERGRID, NSDF and NSDC. With an outlay of 6.5 Crores, the project has trained 5000 people in over 50 job roles across 13 economic sectors. The training was spread across 24 states, 33 locations and 46 training centers over two years. To overcome the challenge of access in remote locations, mobile sites were also setup to impart skill training.

All training programs were aligned to the National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF), a competency-based system with curriculum set by sector-specific industry skill councils.

Speaking on the experience, Naga Sainadh from Vijayawada, Telangana trained for Desktop Publishing course said, "I lost my father when I joined in intermediate first year and had to leave my studies as I am the only breadwinner in my family. I started working in a Homeopathy hospital as an office assistant for a monthly wage of Rs. 3500. I enrolled in DTP course at training center while working part time at the Hospital. After completing my course, I got placed in First Source Ltd at Vijayawada as a Customer service representative. Today I earn more than double of earlier salary and I am happy with the prospect of earning more."

-ANI