Skill Vouchers for Youth
In a move to encourage youth to take up more vocational skills-based training, the government is considering issuing skill vouchers or skill wallets which can be redeemed for skills training at approved training providers.
This is to off-set challenges of the existing subsidy-based system where both trainers and employers receive subsidies to undertake skills training and apprenticeships. The government hopes that a move towards an incentive-based system under the Skill India banner will incentive youth to consider skills-based training in low starting salary sectors like construction where the skill vouchers will be 100% redeemable to supplement the cost of training. In relatively higher starting salary occupations like beauty or fashion designing the vouchers will be partly redeemable.
The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) is contemplating the introduction of these ‘vouchers for skills’ as a new approach to skilling India’s vastly under-skilled youth, even as the overall skilling ecosystem has undergone consolidation and upgradation in the last four years under the Skill India Mission. The MSDE admits that fresh and innovative ideas for skilling are the need of the hour to improve on India’s abysmally low skill levels- less than 5% of India’s workforce is formally skilled- as against South Korea (96%), Japan (80%), Germany (75%), United Kingdom (68%) and the United States (52%).
NSDC Inks MoU with Singapore Polytechnic & Terra Orient Skills Academy
The recently held‘Aero Skills Seminar 2019’ in Bangalore saw the signing of an MoU on a public-private partnership (PPP) model between the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), Singapore Polytechnic and TerraOrient Skills Academy to establish Centres of Excellence for Advance Skilling in India. Training will be imparted according to Singapore pedagogy and standards in higher-level technical skills in high-growth sectors such as aviation and aerospace, identified under ‘Skill India’ and ‘Make in India’.
The MoU was signed off with an Aerospace and Aviation Sector Skill Council sponsored advanced training programme for two young winners in Aircraft Maintenance from the India Skills National competitions held in October 2018. The winners will receive preparatory training at Singapore Polytechnic’s Aero Hub for the upcoming WorldSkills International event in Russia.
Chandigarh Sees 12 New Skill Centres
The Chandigarh Skill Development Mission (CSDM) under the Skill India mission has launched 12 new skill centres which will impart free training to unemployed and socially disadvantaged youth including school drop-outs. Courses will run under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana with the National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research, Chandigarh College of Engineering and Technology, and the Indo-Swiss Training Centre at Chandigarh as partners and skill providers. A thousand students have already enrolled under the scheme which offers training in courses covering web development, retail, CNC machine operation, cutting, welding, etc.
