“Industrial Training Institutes play a vital role in economic development of the country, especially in terms of supplying skilled manpower to industries. We have focused extensively on modernization of our institutes. It is our endeavour to establish at least one ITI in each block of the country by end of 2018”, Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship said.
Addressing the state representatives, Pradhan said, “Vocational Training is a concurrent subject and thus it is imperative that Centre and State governments work closely to ensure a paradigm shift in addressing the issues relevant to skill development and identify the gaps in skill development, so as to achieve the objectives in terms of quantity, quality, outreach, and mobility while building this largest human resource exercise that we have undertaken. The States should align themselves to reforms being done to our central initiatives like Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras (PMKK), Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) and National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS).”
Emphasising on the need for strengthening institutional mechanisms for skill development at the state level and bringing in a more robust framework, Pradhan, launched an array of initiatives at a day long State Skill Development Ministers Conference in New Delhi on Friday. The workshop saw a participation from more than 90% of the states, discussing the skills agenda.
The conference witnessed the launch of new courses for ITIs for India’s youth, as an endeavour to promote emerging skill areas such as Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Robotic Process Automation, Internet of Things, Robotics, Big Data Analytics, 3D Printing, etc. which would be in high demand globally in the coming days.
Recognising the concurrent nature of Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), the conference marked the launch of new Affiliation Norms 2018 for ITIs is which restores the primacy of State Government in the ITIs Affiliation process. Affiliation Norms 2018 aims at establishing high quality Institutions for Skill Training in all parts of the country especially the un-served blocks. To ensure transparency in the affiliation process, a Portal has also been designed and was launched at the event.The portal has a three-stage processwhich simplifies the overall affiliation process. MSDE also announced a Self-Grading exercise for ITIs to provide “Star Rating” to each institute,to ensure quality assessment of ITI and a healthy competition between them.
