Sanjeev Duggal talks to Sangeeta Yadav about the initiative taken by the Centum learning programme to provide skilled manpower aiming to increase productivity
What is Centum learning all aboutIJ
Centum learning provides end-to-end training programmes and skill development solutions aimed at productivity improvement for businesses along with employability enhancement for youth.
What are the activities involvedIJ
In India, Centum learning is focusing on two broad areas — skill development and up-skilling (corporate training). Under corporate training, we target 500 companies across multiple sectors. We have impacted productivity of more than two lakh professionals across automotive majors. Under skill development, we target Ministries at the Centre and State levels. We are partnering with Government agencies pan India to roll out skill development programmes. Within skill development, we are also working on vocational skills training. We have been empanelled by AICTE.
What is Centum Workskills India limited all aboutIJ
In partnership with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), Centum Workskills aims to skill 12 million Indian youth. It has set up more than 278 learning centres in rural and urban areas to provide employability skills to youth in tandem with industry requirements. From retail, selling skills, housekeeping, facility management, domestic BPO to telecom tower maintenance technician, telecom installation and fault repair, general security guard and hospitality, we cover almost all fields.
What is the current scenario of skill development industry in IndiaIJ
As on December 31, 2012, the NSDC has approved 69 training projects, approved 18 sector skills councils, trained 3,20,996 and placed 2,41,354 people. This is against NSDC’s target of training 150 million people through PPP by 2022. These figures reflect the challenges.
The Government has taken steps to reform the vocational education system on basic understanding of limitations and outdated models. That will help the skill development agenda of skilling 500 million people by 2022. The Government is slowly moving from implementation to focusing on policy development and supporting/monitoring private players with an evolving Public Private Partnership (PPP) model in skills development.
Tell us about some of the Government initiatives to bridge the gapIJ
A recent FICCI report states that the current capacity in skill development training is four million per year. The capacity to skill and up-skill, to meet the demands of the industry, has to be enhanced to 15 million per year. This is a huge gap that the Government is trying to bridge by initiatives like setting up of Adarsh ITI in the PPP mode, setting up NSDC to promote financing to private training providers etc.
A recent development of entrusting re-framing of apprenticeship is another welcome step that the Government is taking to bring the employers’ voice on to the table and make them stakeholders.
What are issues in the lack of skill managementIJ
Obsolete and outdated curricula and and the lack of employer involvement in curriculum development are the two major hurdles in skill development. Most of the ITI/ITCs are still working on curriculum that was created before we started using technology.
A welcome step is the setting up of sector skills council with active participation from industry leaders. Government of India is also now taking steps towards that direction by creating an Apprenticeship Act aligned to the current realities and the industry needs.