The National Institute of Technical Teacher Training and Research here has started developing the first skill development curriculum for the workforce in five industries. The content for at least 20 sets of courses has been given to the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) for final approval and implementation.
The southern regional centre of NITTTR in Chennai is responsible for designing the framework for 500 courses for the workforce in automobiles, textiles, leather, healthcare, electronics and IT hardware industries. The work has to be completed by the end of the XI Five-Year Plan. NSDC is envisaged as a public-private partnership enterprise, to facilitate skill training and upgradation of the growing Indian workforce in about 19 sectors. The curriculum for the other sectors is being designed by the three other centres of NITTTR.
According to S. Mohan, Director, NITTTR, there has been no prescribed curriculum to train the skilled workforce, although the Ministry of Labour has a curriculum, it was not designed on a scientific basic.
ADVERTISEMENT
“We are preparing a pedagogy-based curriculum, which will be given to the NSDC for fine tuning and they in-turn give the industry to be adopted suitably,” he said. Developing the skill development curriculum and “training the master trainers” is an ambitious project as a uniform syllabus would be set in place, but there are challenges. “We have difficulty in getting experts from the industry, which we need at different levels,” said Prof. Mohan. To incorporate the best of the international curriculum in the framework, a team of experts from Australia would be helping in designing some courses. The Institute is also hoping to have a centre of excellence where specialised courses would be taught.