Development Commissioner Amit Khare has asked the Higher Education Department and other stakeholders involved in skill development programmes in one way or the other to open up mobility between higher education and skill development, which, according to him, has remained extremely restricted so far.
In a workshop on National Skill Qualifications Framework (NSQF) by the Department of Higher, Technical Educational and Skill development of the State on Monday, Khare who is also Additional Chief Secretary (Finance) said that the Government was making huge investments in skill development, which must result in making higher education and skill development go hand in hand.
“What we have seen in past is that those once taken higher education never found themselves comfortable in occupying any skill development course, and vice-versa. This discomfort created a whole lot of unemployable class in country. This is why rigorous efforts are needed to open up mobility between higher education and skill development. Government strongly believes that education and skill development must complement each other,” said Khare.
He added that Jharkhand was only after Gujarat, Mizoram and Tripura which has maintained a higher Gross Domestic Products (GDP) growth rate compared to the national average. “And education and agriculture are two sectors in which the government has been investing the most with 10.9 per cent to the education and agriculture followed by 10.8 per cent to rural development. This combined amount bears capability to bring paradigm change in the filed of skill development and overall employability scenario in rural and urban youth,” summarized Khare.
Higher, Technical Education and Skill Development department Secretary Ajay Kumar Singh said on the occasion that the government had planned providing skill development and training to some 20 lakh youth in five years. “Out of this, 12 lakh are to be skilled through Jharkhand Skill Development Mission Society and rest through different departments. Though skill development related trainings are nothing new, the change that we have to bring is that synchronizing it with higher education,” said Singh where Rural Development Department Additional Chief Secretary NN Sinha, JSDMS Mission Director Ravi Ranjan, JSDMS CEO Amar Nath Jha and other officials were also present.