Former Director of the elite National Institute of Design (NID) Dr Darlie Koshy has said that the Skill India Mission is likely to face a problem of “plenty” since everyone is focused only on skilling India without having the capacity and volume of employment where the skilled or trained people will be employed.
In a tete-tete with The Pioneer, Koshy suggested that the desired results in Skill Mission will come only when such an initiative is considered for secondary education. “They (school students) are easy to be skilled and trained. When we spend money there should be some objective. let the choice be with the students what they want to do in life or career for that matter, at any case the school-pass outs will be a skilled manpower and will be an asset. In the present scheme of things all the departments are talking on Skill Mission without comprehending the fact of their employabilityIJ I mean job with a dignified pay,” said Koshy, who now heads the prestigious Apparel Training and Design Centre (ATDC).
Koshy suggested for a global skill benchmarks by setting up of a chain of multi-skill centres of excellence and each skill activity centre can be handed over to the knowledge providers. “By providing just an entry-level skill training and making a hype for skill India success would be premature and disservice to our Aspirational India. In my opinion we must invest in the new generation for which the country may also generate jobs by the time they are skilled. The new dispensation at Centre is already doing lot of things like Make in India etc which show results in couple of years,” Koshy added.
“We at ATDC, focus on quality and transparency, and through sheer professionalism the centre continues to work towards imparting skills to improving lives and that a dignified one,” said Koshy. ATDC has emerged as India’s largest vocational training provider for the apparel industry and partnership with members of Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) has given jobs roughly to about four lakh candidates in just few years.