The recent merger of the National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT) and National Skill Development Agency (NSDA) has led to the establishment of the new National Council for Vocational Education and Training (NCVET). That’s a lot of acronyms to put our heads around but thankfully we are now left with just one. This has been a key issue with vocational training in India- too many agencies, too much fragmentation leading to inefficiencies of duplication and lack of coordination.
Santosh Mehrotra, professor, Centre for Labour, JNU, and a lead author of the National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF), and Ashutosh Pratap of Skills and Jobs Policy share their thoughts on how the NCVET can bring about much needed consolidation to vocational education and training, and about learning from the mistakes of the past. The authors stress the need for national and international standards in VET education, a holistic VET system that addresses five pillars of VET, the National Skill Development Corporation’s (NSDC) role in raising private funds to engage industry in Skill India and the need for a dedicated autonomous certification board. Also, find out what the authors think has been the biggest failure of the NSQF and what the urgent priorities are.
