Aiming to produce a 5-crore-strong skilled workforce by 2022, the Centre has approved the first integrated national policy for developing skills and promoting entrepreneurship at a large scale with speed and quality.
“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 identified issues,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday while detailing the policy, a decision for which was taken on Wednesday by the Union Cabinet.
The Government has also approved the introduction of common norms across all skill development schemes being implemented by different ministries and departments of the government.
The National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship 2015 acknowledges the need for an effective roadmap for promotion of entrepreneurship as the key to a successful skills strategy.
The Policy has four thrust areas, as it addresses key obstacles to skilling, including low aspiration value, lack of integration with formal education, lack of focus on outcomes, low quality of training infrastructure and trainers.
Further, it said the policy seeks to align supply and demand for skills by bridging existing skill gaps, promoting industry engagement, operationalising a quality assurance framework, leverage technology and promoting greater opportunities for apprenticeship training.
The Cabinet gave a go-ahead for streamlining of norms across all 70 skill development programmes (SDPs), which are being implemented by the by 21 ministries.
“Currently, 70-odd SDPs are being implemented by the Government, each with its own norms for eligibility criteria, duration of training, cost of training, outcomes, monitoring and tracking mechanism,” said an official from the ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship (MSDE).
“This multiplicity of norms and parameters has created a diffusive effect of SDPs, which need to be streamlined in order to achieve expected outcomes envisaged,” he said.
Common norms as proposed by MSDE seek to rationalise the whole spectrum of skill development processes and systems including inputs, outputs, funding or cost norms, third party certification and assessment, monitoring mechanisms, and empanelment of training providers.
The proposal envisages the creation of a Common Norms Committee under the Chairmanship of Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship to bring about uniformity and standardisation among the skill development schemes of the Central Government.
The Committee will also consist of eight other representatives from relevant Central Ministries/Departments, State Governments, National Skill Development Agency (NSDA) and National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), with a provision for inviting experts and other significant stakeholders who may be necessary in the decision making process.
“While the common norms would be applicable to the skill development schemes of the Government of India being implemented through various Ministries/ Departments, the State Governments are also expected to align their skill development schemes with the common norms so as to bring in uniformity and standardisation,” said the official.
Meanwhile, the National Skill Development Corporation estimated that incremental human resource requirement in India’s healthcare sector will almost double to 74 lakh by 2022.
“Workforce requirement for the healthcare sector is expected to grow from 35.9 lakh in 2013 to 74 lakh in 2022,” NSDC said in a statement.
Besides, the size of the healthcare sector is expected to grow to Rs9.64 lakh crore by 2017, it added.