The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) has come up with a raft of skilling programmes. Seeking to skill over one crore youngsters in the next four years, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana is clearly its flagship programme. Under this programme, training modules in each sector have been designed in consultation with sector and industry experts. The courses meet the standards recognised by both the industry and the government under the National Skill Qualification Framework.
From choosing the training partners, putting up the infrastructure, looking into trainer’s credentials and selection of students, the programme has been entirely process driven.The main objective of the programme is to make candidates eligible for full-time jobs, through short-term, job-oriented training and certification programmes. The certification provided formal recognition for those with skill sets and will enable them to join formal vocational training programmes to upgrade their skills. The focus is on drawing employable youth from rural and urban areas into the workforce and to provide those already in the workforce with re-skilling and up-skilling support.
The Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) is an assessment of the skills acquired by the individual through experience, observation and self-learning. The assessment, which is followed by a certification, gives an edge to an otherwise informal worker. It provides the employee with the confidence, social recognition and empowerment that are necessary to negotiate his future employment. Following successful assessment, a candidate is given a financial reward, in addition to certification. For some of the assessed participants, certain skill gaps get identified. To re-skill the person, bridge programmes combined with RPL have been designed. The duration of these bridge programmes ranges from 60 to 68 hours.Sector-specific training is given while the person is employed. With changing technologies, most of the industries do not have the capacity or the manpower to re-equip their workforce. Such an initiative is of great advantage to the employee and the employer. Besides the aforementioned programmes, fresh training programmes for youngsters depending on the need and demand of the geography have been rolled out.The scheme has witnessed the enrolment of 10 lakh participants spread across 596 districts in the country. PMKVY has so far addressed the requirement for skill development across 29 sectors in which around 566 job roles have been identified for courses that youngsters can join.
(Gayathri Vasudevan is co-founder & CEO of LabourNet Services India Pvt Ltd.)
